The Impact of Romania's Accession to the EU. An Analysis of the Effects of Regional Development Policy Through a Multi-regional I-O Model

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of labour income and employment in Romaniawhich will be produced by rural development and structural policies defined inthe proposed 2007-09 financial package related to accession to the EU. The methodologyused is based on a multi-regional I-O model derived from a three-stage estimationprocedure. The main results show that accession to the EU will lead to great positiveeffects in Romania, which vary according to the region considered. Regarding these, theSouthern and the North-Eastern regions are those in which benefits tend to be concentrated.In all the regions, policy seems to be able to absorb unemployment. Finally, policygives the impression of reducing regional and sectoral income disparities, leading toa more balanced development. On the contrary, in terms of employment, policy increasesdivergences, albeit, at a regional level, there is a general tendency towards areduction of sectoral disparities.