Estimating Potential GDP for the Romanian Economy. An Eclectic Approach

The paper provides potential output and output gap estimates for the Romanian economy in the period 1998-2008. Our approach consists in combining the production function structural method with several statistical de-trending methods. The contribution of our analysis to the scarce literature dealing with the estimation of the cyclical position of the Romanian economy is twofold. First, we identify the contribution of the production factors to the potential output growth. Second, we aggregate the results obtained through filtering techniques in a consensus estimate, ascribing to each method a weight inversely related to its revision stability. The results suggest for the period 2001-2008 an average annual growth rate of the potential output equal to 5.8%, but on a descending slope, due to the adverse developments in the macroeconomic context.