MEASURING TERRITORIAL DISPARITIES IN ROMANIA - A CLUSTER ANALYSIS BASED ON THE ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS FOR AGRICULTURE

• Published in: Analele Universităţii Constantin Brâncuşi din Târgu Jiu : Seria Economie Vol. 2; no. special issue; pp. 18 - 27
• Main Author: BABUCEA ANA-GABRIELA
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academica Brâncuşi 01.12.2017
• Subjects: agriculture sector; cluster analysis; economic accounts; hierarchical clustering; NUTS2 regions; production
• ISSN: 1844-7007; 1844-7007

Romania's agriculture is an economic sector characterized by some specificities. Recent studies on the potential of the Romanian agricultural sector highlight its low economic performance. In this context, starting from the fact that the economic performance is a multivariate phenomenon, the main purpose of the article is to identify the differences and the similarities at the level of the NUTS2 administrative-territorial units, respectively the 8th development regions in Romania, on the post-EU accession period. Were used specific multicriterial statistical analysis methods for territorial analysis based on the Eurostat data series available at the time of preparation of the study, for the entire set of variables, factors considered that are behind the gaps in economic performance of agriculture production sector at the Romanian territorial level. The variables considered are agricultural production value at basic prices for crop output, animal output, services output, secondary activities (inseparable), output of the agricultural industry, total intermediate consumption, and Gross value added at basic prices. The method used in this research for identifying disparities and analyze the changes in regional agricultural production value is hierarchical clustering analysis performed with SPSS 20.00. We applied Ward method, based on the F value (ANOVA) to maximize the significance of differences between clusters, a method considered as a very efficient one. Classes of similar regions were delimited in order to delineate the profile of the Romanian agriculture from the perspective of the economic accounts, following the changes registered in the period after Romania's accession to the European Union, both for the year 2007 and 2015, the last year with available open data. The study confirms the existence of significant disparities in the performance of the agricultural sector at the level of Romania's development regions and can be used both in the analysis of territorial comparisons, but also in the adaptation of the agricultural policy measures