Regional inequalities and sigma divergence in Romania

Starting from the need to understand the economic context that fuels increased regional inequality, this paper addresses the question of long-term regional divergence in Romania focusing on the effects of the recent economic crisis. The study uses a standard regional investigation tool, measuring variation in inequalities from the perspective of sigma convergence. It also addresses the impact of economic growth and crises on inequality. The results indicate territorial divergence in Romania on the long-run and narrowing regional inequality in the last few years, in the context of the economic and financial crisis. The main explanation for this new trend is higher resilience to the crisis of less developed counties/ regions, due to the specific sectorial structure of their economies. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V.