Digitalization in Romania Measured with DESI

Regional Statistics

We build on the argument that measurement of digitalization is essential for effective public policy strategies in order to to govern digital transition. Developing this argument, we investigate the five principal dimensions of the European Commission´s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) using a series of multivariate statistics. The analysis can be divided into three groups. First, we analyse the linear relationships between dimensions by correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis, and principal component analysis. In the partial correlation analysis, causal relationships between the dimensions show high correlations. Second, we assign countries into groups with cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling. The groups obtained by the two methods are very similar. Finally, we rank the European Union (EU) countries using statistical methods and compare with the results obtained with the overall DESI index. The correlation between the two rankings shows a strong linear relationship. Based on these results we draw conclusions on how to effectively use the DESI data for public policy analysis.

Curentul Juridic, 2023

The study was published in Curentul Juridic (2023) vol. 26. no. 1. pp. 21-34. Digitization in the European Union is a key, important policy aiming to build the digital economy and society in the European Union, which requires a complex legal relationship between the EU and the Member States. This is one of the reasons why membership of the European Union entails many rights and obligations for our country. One such obligation is that the Union develops a set of indicators from data provided by Member States. With these indicators the Union can compare the Member States' performance in different (economic) areas. One of these is Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) which is a complex indicator that summerizes relevant indicators of the Union's digital performance and monitor the development of EU Member States' digital competitiveness. In the present study we examine the performance of Hungary in the European Union in recent years through the DESI indicators.

Amfiteatru Economic, 2022

The digital economy is an alternative to the traditional economy, an area of the future on which investment and R&D efforts are focused both by European forums and by Member States, which have understood the importance of the domain with the onset of the pandemic crisis. The aim of the research is to analyze and predict, on the one hand, the impact of digitalisation on EU Member States' economies by means of the three scenarios for the evolution of the digital component of the economy for the horizon 2025 (the baseline scenario, the high growth scenario and the challenge scenario), and, on the other hand, the Member States' ability to achieve the targets proposed by these scenarios. The analysis covers the period 2013-2025 and quantifies the dynamics of the digitalisation phenomena and processes based on dedicated statistical analyses (frequency series analysis, application of the unicriterion critical probability test, application of the Enter method, performing Pearson correlation tests) by means of the IBM-SPSS 25 software. The purpose of this research is the provision of relevant solutions to decision makers in the development of digitalisation. The study highlighted the placing of the results in favourable scenarios, the current trend regarding digital economy evolution, and presented the most likely scenario to be achieved in terms of knowing the provider offer and the needs of service users. The topicality of the study targets a new approach on the foundations of financial allocations for the sustainable development of the digital economy needed in the current conditions of the global crisis and of the pandemic for the implementation of digital economy development policies. A novelty of this research is the conceptualization, validation and testing of an econometric model capable of quantifying the realism of the scenarios proposed by the European Union regarding the development of the digital economy.

TalTech journal of European studies, 2023

The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in recent years has brought about signifi cant changes in many social sectors such as communication, economy, entertainment, and others. To defi ne the key role that ICT plays in its development course, the European Union (EU) has developed a composite indicator, the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), to assess the digital policy performance of its Member States. In the current work, an attempt is made to evaluate the performance of the EU countries on the digital economy and society with respect to implemented EU digital policies by studying the fi ve dimensions of the DESI for the years 2014-2019, using the corresponding DESI reports (DESI 2015-DESI 2020). Moreover, the digital convergence among EU Member States, in terms of similarity of their performance in the fi ve dimensions of the DESI by grouping them according to the optimal number of clusters, is also examined. Since the optimal number of clusters is two, EU Member States are classifi ed in two groups, one of high and one of low performance in the fi ve dimensions of the DESI. The evolution of each member country and the possible transitions from one group to another during the years 2014-2019 is also a point of interest. The grouping of EU Member States into the two clusters showed that socioeconomic factors may aff ect the overall DESI. Linear mixed eff ect models confi rm the positive eff ect of Gross Domestic Product per capita, the public expenditure for education

Research for Rural Development

Today technological progress is reshaping global economic development and changing the overall welfare of societies. Therefore, it is important to assess challenges and readiness of the European Union to use its capacity to ensure that technologies benefit people and bring them towards more inclusive societies enhancing opportunities to use artificial intellect for making health, education, agriculture, services and manufacturing industries more efficient and user friendly. The Digital Economy and Society Index analyses the digital performance of the EU Member States across five main dimensions: connectivity, human capital, use of internet, integration of digital technology, digital public services. However, despite intention to jointly develop Digital Single Market, the gap between the EU top digital countries and less digitally advanced countries remains large. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the digital performance indicators of the EU countries, in particular focusing to Poland and Latvia to assess their progress and potential of their human capital's digital skills. The research is based on theoretical literature studies on industrial revolution stages, European Union Commission documents, indexes and publications available in relevant public institutions such as ministries and industry reports. The research employed monographic method, analysis and synthesis methods as well as graphical data analysis. The research results give evidence that currently Poland's human capital is significantly better prepared for making use of future digital economy challenges than Latvia's human capital, and there is a close link between countries' R&D expenditures proportion of GDP and their human capital's readiness to integrate in digital economy.

Annals - Economy Series, 2018

New IT technologies have generated changes in the economic and social system, and the rapidity with which countries adopt these technologies is essential for increasing economic and social competitiveness in the future. Thus, the measuring of ITC technologies integration in the economy and society is essential, and at the level of the EU-28 countries there is a Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) that shows how a country evolves digitally compared to others. The 2017 report shows significant disparities within the EU28 regarding digitization. Although Romania ranks 2nd in the EU28 for high-speed broadband subscriptions, it is ranked the last in the EU28 from the point of view of Internet usage. In this paper, we will limit to identifying the regions in Romania with the highest percentages of Internet usage and commenting on the main causes underpinning the regional gaps. The research method used was cluster analysis that identified 3 clusters in terms of Internet usage. The dat...

Journal of Management and Business: Research and Practice, 2021

Digital technologies affect our daily lives, whether private or professional. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance and necessity of digital technologies and the transfer of some activities to the online space. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) monitors Europe’s overall digital performance. It is an essential indicator for comparing levels in digital skills and opportunities between EU countries. The aim of the article is to analyze the 3rd part of this index, namely Use of Internet. On the sample of V4 countries, we analyze the performance of individuals in this area. We analyze the overall DESI in the year 2020. The partial analysis of selected segments of DESI was in the period 2015 - 2020, to show not only the results from the last year, because they may be influenced by the Covid-19 situation, but the countries’ progress made by last years. We identify 2 interesting situations. One was in the case of Hungary and the second in Poland. The paradoxes in these...

Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA – Enterprise Research Innovation Conference, 2022

Since the 2000s, the European Commission has been paying particular attention to the digital development of the European economy and society. Since 2014, the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) has been one of the key tools for monitoring and measuring. In 2021, the DESI index's core indicators were aligned with the objectives of the 2030 Digital Agenda, which has four dimensions: human capital, connectivity, integration of digital technology, and digital public services. We sought to determine whether convergence between the Member States could be detected using the third dimension of DESI's annual database. The σ-convergence analysis was used to estimate the reduction over time of the differences in digital technology integration between the Member States, while the β-convergence analysis was used to estimate the rate of catching up with the initial level of development. The σ-and βconvergence were not confirmed. We examined the individual indicators (11) of the integration of digital technology to identify critical areas that need to be addressed in the future to ensure that digital inclusion is as widespread as possible. Our analysis focused on the Member States that joined the EU during the Eastern European enlargements. The performance of all individual indicators is typically below the EU average, and, as the β-convergence analysis shows, the average catching-up rate is not encouraging.

Sustainability, 2024

This study aims to carry out a comparative analysis between the level of digitization of the Romanian public administration compared to that existing in the most digitally developed states at the European level. Our study identifies the extent to which Romanian citizens have access to nonbureaucratic and transparent public services that support social inclusion and non-discrimination, compared to European citizens from states with the best digitalization of public services. Also, our research studies the relationship between the level of digitalization quantified by the DESI indicator and the level of income for the states considered in the analysis, as well as the relationship between digitalization and bureaucracy, the corruption index, and the digital skills of citizens. Based on the 486 statistical data collected and centralized on the corruption index (CPI), as well as the values for DESI and GNI per capita, for the period 2017-2022 for the 27 EU member states, we performed a statistical analysis using SPSS 28 regarding the existence of a DESI relationship and level of income (GNI per capita) and/or CPI (Corruption Perceptions Index). Our study is on a current issue, as it addresses the issue of digitalization of public administration, in the new post-pandemic and geostrategic context. It has theoretical applicability, by determining a model that can be used to study the relationship between digitalization and the standard of living and corruption, and also practical application, because it can contribute to the awareness of the government in taking measures and adopting strategies to reduce gaps as compared to the most developed digital states.

Economics of Networks eJournal, 2017

We live in the Digital Age in which both economy and society have been transforming significantly. The Internet and the connected digital devices are inseparable parts of our daily life and the engine of the economic growth. In this paper, first I analyzed the status of digital economy and society in Hungary, then compared it with Ukraine and made conclusions regarding the future development tendencies. Using secondary data provided by the European Commission I investigated the five components of the Digital Economy and Society Index of Hungary. I performed cross country analysis to find out the significant differences between Ukraine and Hungary in terms of access to the Internet and device use including smartphones, computers and tablets. Based on my findings, I concluded that Hungary is more developed in terms of the significant parameters of the digital economy and society than Ukraine, but even Hungary is an emerging digital nation. Considering the high growth rate of Internet,...