To do an act of justice also involves considering the history that we write by thinking and acting. We live in a world where we care and history and historical narrative is always based on the experiences of time and space. One of those wonderful experiences that stand out took place in Călăraşi County Council Hall, on May 24, 2006. Allow us to quote from AFER’s Volume “Pages from the Romanian Economic Higher Education History, 1843-2013” (p. 225) launched on the occasion of the celebration of 170 Years of Economic Higher Education in Romania and the 100th Anniversary of the initiation of the First Congress of Romanian Economists (this celebration took place Friday, November 22, 2013, being hosted by the historical Aula Magna of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies): << It is appropriate to conclude with a reference to an outstanding action coordinated by the AFER promoter and founder, Professor ION GH. ROŞCA, namely launching, on May 24,  2006, in Călăraşi County Council Hall, of the partnership Project with the theme “Institutional –spiritual reconstruction of the enterprises, requirement of sustainable development in the knowledge society”. This took place on the occasion of the Symposium with the same title organized by ASE Bucharest in collaboration with UGIR 1903 and Romanian Distribution Committee (CRD). It was then that the volume which contained this project was launched. “Tribuna Economică” Journal, no. 22 in 2006, widely covered this event. ^>> The volume that contains this above mentioned project, which appeared in April 2006 at ASE Publishing House made reference at page 488 to the „RESPAD Trophy” offered by CRD, among other things emphasizing the correlation between real success and the vision of the training team, while in the „Additional information regarding the event”, distributed on the occasion of the works of the symposium, the hope was expressed as to what concerns the significance „of a new partnership of public-private interests post-accession in the European Union where the education and research, employers and administration, business governance will find solutions concerning common problems of our lives regarding enterprises competitiveness, pollution of the environment and poverty, the control of risks that the evolution in the new complexity of the world of uncertainties generates…”

The Winner of the „RESPAD Trophy” was Aurel DOBRE (co-author of the volume which appeared in April 2006 at ASE Publishing House), and a great team member who made proud not only the prestigious team co-authoring the volume (Ion Gh. Roşca, Beniamin Cotigaru, Viorel Petrescu, Constantin Popescu, Theodor Purcarea, Iacob Catoiu, Costea Munteanu, Rodica Pamfilie, Gheorghe Orzan, Virgil Balaure, Felicia Stancioiu, to name but a few), but also his old friends and High School Colleagues (Victor Greu, Theodor Purcarea, to name but a few, Lyceum no. 2 Călăraşi, today “Mihai Eminescu” High School).

Trăim într-o lume în care ne pasă și de istorie și narațiunea istorică este întotdeauna întemeia­tă pe experiențe de timp și spațiu. Cum ne autoformăm și ne formăm țelurile pe măsură ce înaintăm în albia timpului, noi fiind atât rezultatele, cât și creatorii alegerilor noastre, se cuvine a parafraza trei iluştrii înaintaşi (primii doi fiind comemoraţi recent de AFER):

▪ Nicolae IORGA şi să amin­tim de faptul că „scurgerea timpului nu poate schimba stră­lucirea aurului”… învăţământului superior economic din România;

▪ Virgil MADGEARU şi să susţinem că “putem avea păreri şi lua atitudine, chiar da soluţii, întrebarea fiind dacă suntem îndreptăţiţi să vorbim în numele ştiinţei, care poate să se raporteze la o valoare, dar nu poate să judece acea valoare”… mai ales că mulţi vorbesc (puţini cunosc) în numele ştiinţei în contextul în care “politica economică îşi păstrează rolul ei în ştiinţa economică.”

▪ Nicholas GEORGESCU-ROEGEN (conform căruia necazul cu știinta economică a lui John Maynard Keynes și a Profesorului Samuelson a fost că aceș­tia au înfațișat economia mondială ca un pendul, pe cand în opinia sa o mai bună metaforă era o clepsidră) şi să adăugăm că învăţământul superior economic din țara noas­tră a realizat de mult timp „că o importantă premisă obliga­torie pentru o viață mai bună este o cantitate substanțială de răgaz cheltuită într-o manieră inteligentă”. Este şi ceea ce continuă să facă Asociația Facultăților de Economie din România (AFER), care a conferit recent calitatea de Membru de Onoare  – cu prilejul aniversării a 10 ani de la înfiinţarea AFER – Academicienilor Mugur Constantin ISĂRESCU,  Iulian VĂCĂREL şi  Aurel IANCU.

În volumul “Pagini din istoria învăţământului superior economic din România, 1843 – 2013. Monografie. 170 de ani de la primul curs de economie politică ținut de ION GHICA la  Academia Mihăileană din Iași” (lucrare elaborată sub egida Asociației Facultăților de Economie din România, Editura ASE București, 2013) este evidenţiat faptul că a face un act de dreptate învăţământului superior eco­nomic presupune și a-i considera istoria, pe care AFER o face gândind și acționând, răspunzând astfel nevoilor unei economii adaptabile, durabile și bazate pe cunoaștere, întărind cunoștințele, abilitățile și înțelegerea oferită de învățământul superior economic, pornind de la convingerea că esența profesionalismului constă în: înțelegerea amănunțită și actualizată a bazei de cunoștințe fundamentale a ocupațiilor economice; înțelegerea suficientă a principiilor teoretice care stau la baza adaptării la situații noi și integrării rezultatelor cercetării în practică; abilități practice și valori profesionale potrivite. Iar aceasta o face în contextul în care, de exemplu, Institutul pentru Noua Știință a Economiei, SUA, a argumentat că este nevoie de a îmbrățișa rapid tranziția către o eco­nomie justă și durabilă, economia globală fiind amenințată de: schimbările climatice care se accelerează, inegalitatea aflată la niveluri istorice, fragilitatea industriei financiare (declanșarea crizei financiare globale în anul 2008), dificul­tatea sistemului politic în a efectua transformările struc­turale necesare.

În acelaşi volum menţionat mai sus (la pag. 221-222) este citat Academicianul Aurel IANCU (coordonatorul “Operelor Complete ale lui Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen”, Editura Expert, colecţia Biblioteca Băncii Naţionale: Omul şi opera; Economia României; Statistică şi matematică; Economie analitică; Legea entropiei şi procesul economic; Energia, resursele naturale şi teoria economică; Epistemologia roegeniană) care ne-a reamintit, de exemplu, în anul 2004, de evoluţia vechiului eșafodaj teoretic ca urmare a schimbării datelelor problemelor, modurilor de abordare și de interpretare în noul context al integrării şi globalizării, căpătând teren noile paradigme care se răspândesc rapid şi devin predominante în lumea ideilor.

Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy,

Honored Personality 2016:

Prof. Dr. John L. Stanton

The European Retail Academy (ERA) was founded in February 2005 at the exhibition EuroShop by Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier and some of his academic friends to support the Bologna-process and the interaction between theory and application in the field. Today www.european-retail-academy.org has links to more than 225 research-institutes for trade/marketing/ tourism all over the world. The ERA Hall of Fame selects each year one professor who stands for outstanding contributions within the international interaction of research and applied sciences.

Allow us to remember the distinguished personalities who have been honored by ERA in the last four years: Léon F. Wegnez, Romano Prodi, Klaus Toepfer, Robert Aumann.

     Editura ARS DOCENDI, Universitatea din Bucureşti, editură cu profil academic şi cultural, a lansat la “Târgul Internaţional GAUDEAMUS – Carte de învăţătură” recent încheiat cartea “CHINA”, carte coordonată de soții Alexandru-Mircea Nedelea și Marilena-Oana Nedelea, Profesori la Universitatea „Ștefan cel Mare“ din Suceava. Este o carte care merită într-adevar a fi citită pe îndelete, fiind scrisă cu suflet, cu înţelepciune şi cu pricepere.

     “Prefaţa” este semnată (în septembrie 2015) de Excelenţa Sa XU Feihong, Ambasador Extraordinar și Plenipotențiar al Republicii Populare Chineze în România, care mulțumeşte din inimă celor care au contribuit la scrierea acestei cărți și prietenilor din diferite cercuri care au fost preocupați de China de-a lungul anilor, subliniind legătura sufletească dintre popoarele celor două ţări şi faptul că relaţiile dintre ţările noastre sunt ilustrate perfect de proverbul „Prietenul la nevoie se cunoaște“. Excelenţa Sa consideră chiar că legătura dintre China și România este demnă de a fi numită modelul de relație dintre două țări. În acelaşi timp, Excelenţa Sa apreciază că această carte “China” descrie pe larg imaginea acestei țări din perspectivă politică, economică, culturală, istorică, diplomatică etc. și îl ajută pe cititor să înțeleagă China Modernă.

Iată deci contextul în care ne permitem a invita la lectură, argumentând că încă din primul capitol al cărţii cititorul este îmbiat cu o consistentă structură ideatică reflectând substanţă şi actualitate: Amintiri marcate de zâmbet, cea mai scurtă cale între prieteni;  Bunăvoinţa ca valoare fundamentală şi renaşterea culturală în secolul 21 articulată pe rapida dezvoltare economică. Un nou model economic de dezvoltare; Modelul chinez, pe primul loc ca abilitate de a stimula economia. Strategia R. P. Chineze de construcţie a unei societăţi armonioase pe plan intern şi a unei lumi armonioase pe plan internaţional; Către un model durabil care echilibrează creşterea cu armonia socială şi inovarea cu protecţia mediului. O mai profundă ontologie a antreprenoriatului social; Profilurile economice în evoluţie ale consumatorilor chinezi, cea mai importantă tendinţă în formarea pieţei chineze. Revoluţia vânzării bunurilor pe Internet; Forţele care forjează viitorul Chinei şi construirea abilităţilor necesare mersului înainte. Provocări pentru cercetătorii ştiinţifici din domeniul economiei politice internaţionale şi comparative; În loc de concluzii, tot un zâmbet, cu gândul la înţelepciunea favorizând consensul pentru o lume armonioasă.

On November 5, 2015, the Romanian Competition Council launched within a Conference its Annual Report “The Romanian Competitive Environment – Developments in Essential Sectors”. The special event took place at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania. This new Romanian Competition Council’s Report on competition in key sectors reconfirmed the accumulated experience by refining its working practices and delivering decisions in a timelier manner without reducing quality, improving the methodology for analysis, tackling the right competition problems and encouraging compliance, struggling to deploy resources more effectively and flexibly across its significant work.

This great conference (great content, talks, company, and conclusions) represented not only competition advocacy, but also an opportunity to improve the institution’s tools and approaches based on a more informed debate. This 7th edition of the Romanian Competition Council’s Report analyzed a series of aspects that are of interest both for the public opinion, as well as for the competition authority, i.e.: the impact of VAT reduction for food; the state’s participation in the key sectors; the issues in the motor insurance and energy sectors; the analysis of the situation in the banking system and the competition assessment at the level of several national industries via the competition indicators (as a permanent element of this kind of report); the sector analysis of concentration trends – the most important developments in the area of mergers and acquisitions (a new element, introduced in 2015).

It is worth mentioning, for example, that twenty industries in the national economy were assessed using the Aggregate Index of Competitive Pressure (AICP), thus measuring how close they are to an ideal situation, which allows the full manifestation of competition. Within this context, the competition authority: identified (based on the 2015 value) three groups of industries defined via the quartiles (position indicators frequently used in statistics); noticed the decreasing trend of AICP in the case of car distribution, the reduction of the composite index being determined by the apparent tightening of market-access conditions (even if they remain at a reasonable level), the continuation of the price aligning process to the level of other countries in the region, corroborated with a slight increase of the profitability of this activity, but also the apparent limitation of investment in marketing and communication activities at industry level; also noticed a certain AICP decrease trend for the 2013-2015 period for the industries analyzed in the insurance sector: motor hull insurance, -1.9%, life insurance, -1.3%, third-party liability insurance, -0.4% (and as this trend will continue, given the recent developments in the insurance sector, the competition authority will need to monitor this sector closely, in order to prevent possible anti-competitive behaviors).

The main sectors with merger operations analyzed by the Competition Council between 2012 and 2015 were: the retail and wholesale sector, the finance-banking sector, the energy and extraction sector, the services sector, the production sector and the real estate sector. The most active sectors in Romania, from the perspective of the number of transactions concluded between 2013 and 2014 were: the services sector, the production sector and the energy and extraction sector. On the other hand, in order to observe the evolution of prices in the food trade sector (in 2014, on average, 19.7% of the total income of households was used for purchasing food), the competition authority selected a basket of goods (consisting, in the case of modern trade, of 36 categories of goods; for traditional trade it was reduced, for logistic reasons, to 18 categories of products) considered representative for food consumption.

According to the above mentioned Report, in the food retail sector, in the case of modern trade, the market structure is close, from the point of view of its characteristics, to a Bertrand-type oligopoly (which appears when there is little differentiation or the products are actually homogeneous; should numerous producers be present in several retailer chains, and geographically there is higher overlapping of caption areas manifested by large stores, their incentives to compete through price increase considerably). That is why it is expected to witness higher competition pressure in the case of modern trade than in the case of traditional trade.  And as a consequence of the reduction of food VAT as of June 1st, it has noticed a reduction of prices both in the traditional and modern trades, the decrease of prices in the modern trade being higher than in the case of traditional trade (the VAT reduction was almost fully transmitted to consumers). It was also interesting to note that: due to a specific homogeneity of the traded products (the same products are available in several retail chains in modern trade and even in the traditional trade), especially in the case of modern trade, this decrease suggests the possibility of a higher competition pressure which would stimulate competition through price; even though the reduction of prices in the traditional trade was lower, more than half of the possible reduction was transmitted to consumers (9.1% against 12.1% maximum possible), which suggests that there is a total independence between the two forms of trade and there are inter-dependencies, most probably caused, by the overlapping of caption areas.

As for what concerns the preliminary findings of the sector inquiry on the electricity market in Romania, the above mentioned showed that the competition authority conducted a large-scale sector inquiry on electric energy market, considering the following four categories of activities (each of them representing a distinct relevant market and having several segments): the electricity production and trade market; the electricity supply market; the electricity transport market; the electricity distribution market.  Subsequent to this conducted analysis the competition authority formulated a series of recommendations. In the last case – the electricity distribution market (where the electricity distribution service represents a natural monopoly) – it was underlined, for instance, that there is no competition between companies operating distribution networks and the activity performed by these operators has a regulated regime. And as regards electricity transport – including distribution – the competition authority considered that the current tariff mechanism, differentiated on geographical areas, affects competition, without benefits to consumers or without being justified by the security of the National Energy System.

Without entering in other details, allow us to highlight that the President of the Romanian Competition Council, Mr. Bogdan M. Chiritoiu, underlined from the very beginning that the competition authority will continue to guard consumers’ interests and, generally, advocate market as the optimum mean for an efficient allocation of resources.

A day before Romanian Competition Council’s Annual Activity Report launch, on November 4, 2015, the meeting of the Advisory Board of the Romanian Competition Council took place. The event was hosted at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania. It is well-known that the meetings of the Advisory Board of the Romanian Competition Council are a traditional opportunity to share ideas on competition policy and to receive feedback on these ideas and policy visions within the strong commitment of promoting the competition culture in full process of the effective implementation of the competition policy. This meeting of November 4, 2015 proved to be again a pragmatic exchange of views carried out between, on one hand, the President of the Romanian Competition Council, Bogdan M. Chiritoiu and the other members of the Board – Vice-President Otilian B. Neagoe, and the Competition Councilors Dan N. Ionescu and Lazlo Gyerko –  and on the other hand, the majority of the Advisory Board of the Romanian Competition Council – Jonathan Scheele, Mihai Berinde, Costel Stanciu, Radu Merica, Mihai Bogza, Gabriela Tigu, Theodor Purcarea, Claudiu Paul Buglea, Viorel Munteanu, Natalia Roman, Violeta Alexandru, Florin Pogonaru, Sorin Mindrutescu, Lucian Croitoru, Anca Harasim, Steven van Groningen, Dragos Pislaru. And as usual, the technical Secretariat organizing the works of the Advisory Board of the Romanian Competition Council was ensured by Simona Barbu and George Anglitoiu with their already known rigor and professionalism.