In Romania 70% of the national production is generated by the economy private sector, which is still relatively at a low value compared to the share registered in the developed countries. The economic crisis has affected the entrepreneurship sector quite to a large extent. The main consequences of that circumstance are: the ratio of new businesses founding decrease, the ratio of business liquidation growth. This process was relatively asynchronous with that of the developed European Union countries, but common in the former planned economy countries and the dominance of state property. Based on some comparable data sets, this paper includes an econometric modeling for the new enterprises founding impact on the dynamic of national production, as measured by GDP. The paper's findings may provide a ground for governmental strategies regarding the private sector development and the private economic initiative.
The economical mechanism was restructured along with the event in 1989, from a centralized economy
based on state ownership to a market economy, a certain overlapping of transformations took place: the
transition from mainly state property to mixed property, the transition from a planned mechanism to freemarket, from a strict price control to general market pricing, the change in wealth distribution, in society
classes, the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Of all these processes, perhaps the most important one
from the economic consequences standpoint was changing the property structure, which was made in two
manners: by stimulating free initiative and property transfer.
1.1. The foundation rate
The foundation rate, calculated by comparison to the existent number in January 1st 1995, is placed in the
field 13-17% until 2001, afterwards registering a significant growth, due to the improvement of the business
environment, also leading to a growth of the national production expressed through the GDP. The number of
new founded companies exceeds 100,000 after 2003, with a maximum in 2005, than the process of enterprise
foundation decreased further on. Figure 1 presents the foundation rates calculated by division of the newly
founded enterprises to the existent number in January 1995. The absolute values of the new enterprises
highlight a dynamic trend, especially after the year 2000, which reflects a entrepreneurial environment more
and more favorable, and if we correlate this fact with the age of the new entrepreneurs, mainly young people,
we can appreciate the consolidation of the entrepreneurial market in Romania.1.2. The regional dimension of the new enterprises
By regions, the partial rates indicate a maximum dynamic of the Bucharest-Ilfov region 9.6% in 2007 and
6.1% for 2009, while the North-Western (4.7%) and North-Eastern (4.3%) regions register minimum dynamics.
In the analyzed period, a certain diminution took place concerning the regional discrepancies, although the
differences remain high. Thus, in 2001 the foundation rate was 2.9 % in the North-Eastern region while 1.3% in
the Western region, which imply the necessity to apply in a different manner the policies for the activation of
the regional economic environment. From the regional dynamics point of view, the situation for the last three
years concerning the foundation of new enterprises is as follows: North-East: 148.3%; South-East: 131.0%;
South: 266.7%; South-West: 250.0 %;West: 246.2%; North-West:188.0%; Centre: 222.2%; Bucharest-Ilfov:
254.2%. The dynamics between the years 1995-2009 generated a certain attenuation of the territorial
discrepancies. Except for the Bucharest-Ilfov region, which is in a special situation, we can observe an
increased dynamics in the regions that still have low weights in the national total (South-West, West and
South), which can be interpreted as an efficient response to the economic development stimulation actions, and
to the private initiative in the less developed regions.
The economic crisis in the past years had a strong
impact on the national economic environment thus becoming a break in the development of private initiative.
From the point of view of enterprise demographics, the foundation, annulment and survival rates are placed at
medium European level, closer to ex-communist countries and farther away from Northern countries where
enterprise foundation rates are lower, as well as mortality rates. The enterprise foundation rates data series,
GDP dynamics and weight of private sector in national production are series built for the period 1995-2009 (the
years for which we were able to build homogenous and comparable series) were used to identify an impact
model for the two factor variables (new enterprise foundation rate and private sector weight in GDP) in the
national production dynamics. The model with the best validation highlights the strong connection between the
new enterprise foundation rate and GDP increase thus explaining the compression of the national production at
the moment of crisis out-burst and business environment degradation. Finally, one can state that encouraging
the creation of new companies and consolidating the private sector in the economy is a sure means to increase
the economic performance of Romania.
