The Dynamics of Associations and Foundations in Romania. Econometric Analysis

This article highlights the evolutionary trend of the associations and foundations in Romania in 1997 – 2015 period of time. We know that the NPO's activities come to cover the people's needs which cannot be supported by the state or by the private sector. More precisely, the major roles of the NPO sector are: supporting disadvantaged groups and the social causes, sustaining the role of "watchdog", and promoting the advocacy and public policy expertise. For this reason, we propose an econometric model that will be applied to establish the link between the number of the association and foundations, poverty rate, unemployment rate and the average monthly expenditure per household. We consider that the last three factors are relevant to the country’s social economy and, at the same time, they represent the main objectives of the EUROPE 2020 Strategy - a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The study is based on numerical data collected over a period of 12 years from 2003 to 2014. For the econometric model, we use IBM SPSS 22 software, in analyzing the collected data. After processing the data we will find a positive and significant relation between the number of associations and foundations (AF), the average monthly expenditure per household and the poverty rate. At the same time, we will find an insignificant relation between the number of associations and foundations and the unemployment rate.

JEL classification: C22, C58, G01, M20.