Objectives

The case study we propose should retrace several defining elements for such a research:
Thus, the design of the project and of each individual case study should reflect the essential phenomena that define, delineate and explain economic, social, and cultural issues of a regional area: economic phenomena, organizational and managerial processes, demographical aspects, social processes and developments, analysis of specific cultural and "regional mentality" features. One should also add the analysis of aspects pertaining to inter-regional relations at the level of the entire political entity. The novelty of the type of analysis that we propose consists, first of all, in the pattern of regional economic development analysis which takes into account phenomena in an integrated vision, considering them and analyzing their interactions and complexity in order to provide a most faithful image of economic-social phenomena that characterized regional evolutions in the nineteenth century in this part of Europe.

The concrete objectives of our project are:

1. identifying regional economic features based on specialized bibliography on: Highland Banat, Jiu Valley, the gold areas of Apuseni Mountains and Bucovina.
2. charting specific socio-economic regional continuities and discontinuities. The goal will be achieved by:
-analyzing the influence of state policies on the creation of a specific economic profile
-studying investment types and strategies
-identifying preserved, developed and transformed or adapted existing elements as well as elements that were abandoned due to market pressures, economic realities, natural and social resources
3. retracing regional space as an operational system. The objective will be achieved by:
-studying socio-demographical, cultural, ethnic, social and educational elements and criteria that generate and define regional identity from an economic and social point of view.
4. synthesizing essential phenomena that define the respective regional areas. The objective will be achieved by:
- analyzing collected data, studied phenomena and placing them in the analysis frameworks provided by economic theories that rely on the concept of regional economy.