Laura Diaconu

The Foreign Direct Investments in South-East Asia during the Last Two Decades☆

Abstract Foreign direct investments have played an important role in the economic development of ASEAN states, especially after the 1990s. However, the two economic crises, from 1997 and 2007, have significantly influenced the investments’ inflows in South-East Asia, each country from the region experiencing a different evolution of the FDI. The purposes of the present paper are to analyse the trends of the ASEANs inward FDI between 1990 and present, by identifying the factors that have encouraged or discouraged these flows in the context of the two crises, and to estimate the possible future evolution of these investments. In order to achieve these purposes, we have analysed and interpreted information included in several statistical reports, data-bases and year-books. The conclusions underline that, despite the economic downturns, South-East Asia will continue to attract the investors due to its competitive advantages.

Correlation Between the Structure of Education and the Development Level - A Short Review

The present paper underlines the fact that the resources allocated to education and the structure of the educational act must be correlated to the level of development of a country, at a certain moment. For Romania, the conclusions impose a reallocation of resources towards the secondary education and a reorganization of the tertiary education. The developing countries need medium skilled labor force because the emerging markets do not have the financial and technological capacity to sustain innovative fields with highly skilled workers. Romania is in this last situation. Yet, the educational system has continued producing university graduates that the economy could not absorb. Consequently, a large part of them have emigrated, looking for a proper compensation of their contribution to the production system. So, the main challenges for Romania would be to match the specializations to the market demand and to substantially reduce the public spending for the tertiary education.

Formal Education in Romania and Economic Growth

The present paper analyzes the way in which the formal education, acquired especially through the learning system, can influence the Romanias stock of human capital. Unfortunately, in our country this type of education is free of charge at almost all the levels, fact that diminishes the marginal utility and the value that a person gives to each additional school year. Moreover, the resource allocation is made according to principles hard to identify. The primary and the secondary education has been neglected long time because it was wrongly considered that a greater importance given to the tertiary education would increase the human capital stock.

Romanian Human Capital

Human capital, defined as a sum of knowledge, abilities and skills that may be used in a productive way, plays an important role at the growth and development of a country. For this reason, the purpose of this article is to analyze the way in which its five determinants - formal education, professional experience at the workplace, informal life style, the countrys specific and the level of health - are influencing the Romanian stock of human capital. In order to fulfill this objective we used the information existent in the specialized literature and the results obtained in a research conducted by us on a representative sample of 300 persons from the North-Eastern part of the country.