The Romanian Academy counts among its founding members scholars who were also interested in the economical sciences, such as Petre S. Aurelian, Ion Ghica, Visarion Roman. In 1913, a committee was formed whose task was to establish an economic section of the Romanian Academy. The members of this committee were young economists who had studied in renowned universities in Romania and abroad: I. N. Angelescu, Ion Raducanu, Victor Slavescu and Virgil Madgearu; they represented the nucleus of the second generation of remarkable economists in the Romanian Academy, following the first generation at a distance of nearly half a century. Victor Slavescu acted as a well-versed economist and liberally oriented financier. His May 31st, 1940 acceptance speech upon election to the Academy was dedicated to the life and works of Dionisie Pop Martian, whom he regarded as "the founder and lawgiver of Romanian economic nationalism." Virgil Madgearu, one of the best-known Romanian economists of the inter-bellum period, was granted posthumously the title of Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy after 1990.

Sociology was mentioned as a field of study of the Romanian Academy’s system of institutes only in 1935; its main representatives were Dimitrie Gusti, Nicolae Petrescu and Henri H. Stahl. Sociology became a part of the Academy not only via works and theoretic or methodological contributions, but also through important individual field research on the main problems in the development of Romanian society, performed by certain institutes of the Academy and teams of interdisciplinary research.

Schooled in Western Europe’s great universities and primarily in Germany, Dimitrie Gusti had a scientific conception of the socio-economic realities of Romanian society.

Elected acting member of the Academy, in the years after WW I he became its President. The idea of compiling a social monograph had already existed since the 19th century and generated a number of interesting works, but the complete achievement of the sociologic monograph was Dimitrie Gusti’s work.

Some of the ideas Gusti presented in his books, papers and courses found concrete realization at the same time that they gained international recognition. In his vision, there were three inter-related sciences: the study of social life, which he called sociology, the moral evaluation of the data revealed by this study, which he called ethics, and the means to intervene in social life, which he grouped under the term of politics. This close link between knowledge and social intervention, expressed by the formula of "science and social reform," was Gusti’s constant preoccupation throughout his entire life.

The forensic sciences were represented from the very beginning of the Romanian Academy by scholars and doctors of law such as Vicentiu Babes, Constantin Bosianu and Ion Kalinderu, while in the 20th century Nicolae Titulescu, Andrei Radulescu, Mircea Djuvara, Eugen A. Barasch, Traian Ionascu and Ioan Ceterchi were brilliant theoreticians and practitioners of the legal profession who inscribed their names among those of the members of the Academy.

Currently, the Section of Economic Sciences, Juridical Sciences and Social Sciences, through its network of institutes, is studying the difficult and momentous problem of the economic, social and juridical transition of Romanian society to a special type of social community, appropriate to the nature, inclinations and traditions of the Romanian people. The economic institutes have become a part of the Romanian Academy’s network after 1990 and study the following domains: national economy, world economy, quality of life, industrial economy, agricultural economy, finances-costs-prices, economic prognosis, demographics, comparative and consensual economy. The main periodicals published by this Section are the Romanian Economic Review, Romanian Journal of Sociology, Revue Roumaine des Sciences Juridiques.