DRIVERS OF KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY IN THE EU’S DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The new EU Member States have made important efforts to achieve an economic growth based on accumulation of knowledge according with principles and realities of developed countries. After accession, Romania has initiated an extensive restructuring process in entire society. The main purpose of this study is to appreciate the knowledge based economy’s features in Romania, comparative to other countries which joined later the EU. In this respect, the study aimed to evaluate the state of knowledge economy depending by a group of elements which refer to the following areas: innovation system, education and ICT. The research methodology was based on the econometric analysis of a representative panel data for the twelve new member states of the EU. Results highlight that for the analyzed countries, education system and the R&D activity had positively affected the economic growth, but the education factors had a stronger impact on the knowledge economy dynamics