ESTIMATING DYNAMIC PATTERNS FOR RESOURCE CONSUMPTION IN ROMANIA vs. EU

The intensive economic growth during the last decades has been associated with a continuously increasing intensive use of material resources, in spite of the rapid technological progress. The historical data over long periods of time reveal that the current economic system deals to a certain degree the inefficient use of resources by allowing large waste, low conversions factors, pricing below true costs. The situation is somehow different in the countries that have adjusted their industrial structure after major political and societal events as it is the case with Romania. The paper intends to address the issue of diversity in the evolution patterns of the resource productivity and other resource indicators among the EU member states, relating to the resource consumption al the domestic economy level, and conducting a statistical analysis based on observations derived from evidence on resource indicators (such as resource efficiency and the following broad categories - overall (national) resource consumption and industry resource consumption). In the paper, the resource productivity is addressed, measured as the volume of Gross Domestic Product in market prices (GDP) over Domestic Material Consumption (DMC). The evolution of these indicators was very specific at the member states’ level depending on domestic context – the economic structure, the competitiveness level, the impact of financial crisis etc. but the link with other time series or structure indicators bring to light new perspectives in revealing the patterns of consumption and policy actions to improve the resource efficient use.