Methodology

This book relies on a triangulation of data sources and methods to increase the robustness of findings and conclusions. Findings based on a secondary analysis of open data have been put in the larger settings of the Romanian system of public administration, as a result of the extensive desk review and contextual analysis conducted. The desk research has also identified previous findings on similar topics/ approaches. In addition, open data on PNDL II funding allocations published by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration have been supplemented with relevant statistical information at locality level from the National Institute of Statistics, as well as local development indexes currently available—for rural localities, technical and building endowment index, as computed in a study by the Economic Studies Academy, index of local human development, as computed by professor Dumitru Sandu, together with various indicators (mainly on own revenues and EU funds) from the database of local budgets execution as published by a different department from the same ministry mentioned above—General Directorate of Public Administration, Directorate for Local Fiscal and Budgetary Policies. Based on the desk review, additional data sources have been integrated into a common database. They refer to data on the political affiliation of mayors’ and President of the County Council from the local elections of 2016 as published by the Central Electoral Office and data on urban and rural municipalities which are part of a Local Action Group. All these quantitative data have been aggregated by the author in a common database at locality level. Furthermore, data from the budgetary allocations of PNDL II have been, on the one hand, integrated into a large database compiled at investment objective level and, on the other hand, aggregated at locality level, as a sum of all contracted investment objectives.