The Balassa-Samuelson Effect in Romania

This paper aims to provide estimates of the the Balassa-Samuelson effect in Romania – the extent to which differences in productivity growth between tradables and nontradables industries explain the observed differences in inflation between Romania and the euro area. The Balassa-Samuelson effect has major implications for interpretation of the inflation and the exchange rate criteria for European Monetary Union membership. The conclusion is that the Balassa-Samuelson effect explains only marginally the observed inflation differential. Unlike previous studies which estimated higher values for this effect, this paper considers the productivity differential of each sector and the weight of the tradables sector in Romania in relation to the Euro Area. The results show that there is very unlikely that the productivity differential endangers the nominal convergence criterions.