The sectoral structures in Romania, its regions and the EU countries - key features of economic and social cohesion

The economic structure by sectors plays a very important part in the dynamics of development gaps at sub-national level, because it influences the income level and distribution in the regions/sub-regions of a country, as many empirical studies showed. In the perspective of increasing globalization, difficult recovery from economic crises, and persistent inter-country, inter-regions and intra-regional development gaps, the goals of cohesion policy in the EU member states in the future programming period, 2014-2020, envisage, among others, the best use of regional/local human, natural and capital resources in order to increase the living standard of all citizens and diminish the development imbalances. The paper presents an analysis of the sectoral gross value added dynamics in Romania, its regions and other EU countries with the help of various structural coefficients, in the attempt to identify patterns of sectoral convergence or divergence, structural resilience or fragility and the likely impact of economic crises. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.