Abstract:

Economic growth and quality of life are two essential topics to make a time-based analysis of the evolution of a state or a comparison with other states. Naturally, if a country is successively gaining economic growth, we would expect that country to significantly improve the quality of life for the citizens. Romania is a particular case that we have addressed in this paper. Although the statistics show continued economic growth over the last five years (the largest economic growth in the EU in 2017), the quality of life in Romania has not improved properly. The main objective of this paper is to identify several priorities for the economic and social policies and strategies in Romania. Other specific objectives are to present and analyze the evolution of the main macroeconomic indicators in 2013-2017 and the main aspects that reflect the quality of life in Romania. The research methodology is based on a dynamic analysis of series of statistical data identified at the World Bank, the National Institute of Statistics and Eurostat. One of the main conclusions of our research is that Romania's 5.7% economic growth in 2017 is sustainable by 3%, the rest is an unrealistic and artificial growth. Our work contains strong arguments to convince the politicians that the models of economic growth and quality of life in Romania should be changed. The last part of the paper lists the priorities for action for these necessary and urgent changes for Romania.