THE CONCEPTS OF SPECIALISATION AND SPATIAL CONCENTRATION AND THE PROCESS OF ECONOMIC INTEGRATION: THEORETICAL RELEVANCE AND STATISTICAL MEASURES. THE CASE OF ROMANIA’S REGIONS

The issues of specialisation and spatial concentration are important to economic policy and to the competitiveness of the European Union for several reasons. The literature on trade theory concerning economic integration provides different perspectives on the evolution of specialisation and spatial concentration. Both issues have been analysed in the theoretical literature as related economic concepts, but additional empirical research is needed for a better understanding of these phenomena. The purpose of the paper is both methodological and descriptive. First, we display the theoretical literature on trade, which emphasises the role played by economic integration at national level. Second, we try to see which of the trade theories best explains the regional structure of employment in terms of specialisation and spatial concentration. We apply our methodology to a specific case: Romania's development regions and their employment structure. Therefore, regional specialisation and geographical concentration are defined in relation to production structures.specialisation, spatial concentration, trade theories, economic integration, Romania’s development regions.