Report No. 188

(XII) Romania:

(http://www.bsus.umd.edu/ecom/murrel/romania/romlaw.html)

(Peter Murrel's Website) Demand and supply in Romanian commercial courts - generating Information for Institutional Reform:

Institutional reform is much emphasized in transition countries, but the process of constructing workable institutions is not well-understood. One element of this process which is often reflected is the generation of empirical information that can aid in the process of institutional design.

Such information can be produced for one vital area of reform in the transition and developing economies and for commercial court reform. Estimates of the supply-demand model promote commercial court services in Romania. The model's construction suggests methodological problems in existing studies and the estimates quantify the possible biases, which would lead to erroneous conclusions on institutional design. The results show the simultaneous relation between congestion and caseload and the exogenous effects of resources, legal culture, options for appeal, and economic environment. Coincidentally, Romania recently implemented reforms which are very pertinent. Some failures of institutional reform are due to lack of empirical input into institutional design.

In the Emergency Government Ordinance 138 (Sept. 14, 2000), the Romanian Government announced a set of procedural reforms affecting litigation of commercial cases in Romania. A detailed statistical analysis of delay in these courts has been made by Prof. Peter Murrel (Univesity of Maryland recently).