Despite the significant duration of decentralisation processes, no clear model of redistribution of resources, areas of responsibility and control at the national, regional and local levels has been introduced in Ukraine. Basic theoretical concepts prove that administrative and financial decentralisation is a complex and ambiguous process for the development of the country's economy. Along with the positive results, there are some risks of deepening the irregularities of development, complications in the implementation of macroeconomic policies, increasing corruption, etc. Theoretical and empirical researches of decentralisation processes in the world allow us to identify trends such as the absence of a direct link between the level of the country's development and the degree of administrative and financial decentralisation; the focus and motives for decentralisation processes are different in different countries; elimination of macroeconomic imbalances is often accompanied by the processes of recentralisation. The level of decentralisation of power and public finances in Ukraine is characterised by a high degree of centralisation of public finances. The decentralisation processes prove to be fragmented with a high risk of deepening territorial social and economic differentiation. Keywords: Decentralisation; Irregularity of Development; Public Finances JEL Classification: H7; R58 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21003/ea.V166-15Сторонянська I. З. доктор економічних наук, професор, заступник директора з наукової роботи, Державна установа «Інститут регіональних досліджень ім. М. І. Долішнього НАН України» Беновська Л. Я. кандидат економічних наук,старший науковий співробітник відділу регіональної фінансової політики, Державна установа «Інститут регіональних досліджень ім. М. І. Долішнього НАН України» Ризики адміністративно-фінансової децентралізації: теоретичні гіпотези та емпіричні оцінки Анотація Незважаючи на значну тривалість процесів децентралізації, в Україні не вироблено чіткої моделі перерозподілу ресурсів, зон відповідальності та контролю між національним, регіональним та місцевим рівнями управління. Базові теоретичні концепції засвідчують, що адміністративно-фінансова децентралізація є складним і неоднозначним процесом для розвитку економіки країни. Теоретичні та емпіричні дослідження децентралізаційних процесів у світі дозволили виділити такі тенденції: відсутність прямої залежності між рівнем розвитку країни та ступенем адміністративно-фінансової децентралізації; спрямованість та мотиви процесів децентралізації у різних країнах є різними; подолання макроекономічних дисбалансів часто супроводжують процеси рецентралізації. Рівень децентралізованості влади та державних фінансів в Україні характеризується високим ступенем централізації державних фінансів, безсистемністю імплементації реформ децентралізації, високим ризиком поглиблення територіальної соціально-економічної диференціації. Ключові слова: децентралізація; нерівномірність розвитку; державні фінанси. Сторонянская И. З. доктор экономических наук, ...
The paper investigates the strengthening of intraregional differentiation of the development of territorial communities in Ukraine under the influence of decentralization reform and administrative-territorial reform. The types of asymmetries of territorial communities’ development are identified, among them: organizational, functional, social, budgetary, institutional. The conducted analysis of organizational asymmetries related to the formation of territorial communities has made it possible to identify significant gaps by number and area of ??the united territorial communities (UTCs). The capacity and the size of the population of community are interrelated, because the large communities have greater opportunities for business development due to the availability of labor resources and the ability to hold infrastructure objects and institutions of communal property. Instead, small-scale UTCs are usually financially feasible only if they have budget-generating companies. Unfortunately, the creation of a significant part of UTCs has taken place without taking into account the capacity requirements and contrary to the requirements of the methodology in order to obtain additional authority and resources. As a result of violations, there were problems of the possibility of further functioning of newly formed territorial communities. Among the UTCs created during the years of reform, there is a strong differentiation by level of their financial capacity. The ratio between the minimum and maximum values of own revenues of UTCs’ budgets per inhabitant (asymmetric scale) is about 40 times. The distribution of UTCs’ revenues depending on the population size are analyzed and it is found out that with each subsequent year of power decentralization reforms the territorial communities with higher financial capacity were formed. The lack of sufficient economic potential for UTCs’ development is confirmed to be the reason of low level of financial capacity of their overwhelming majority. Attention is drawn to the necessity of leveling the risk of increasing differentiation and the gap between UTCs and territories that have not gone through the process of unification. The measures for overcoming intraregional development differentiations are proposed, among which is the necessity to adhere to certain criteria concerning population size, share of transfers in income, share of managerial expenses while the formation of a UTC; maximum use of endogenous factors of territorial communities’ development; elimination of conflict situations between the center and the periphery when planning the development of the territory, etc.
Theoretical principles and world experience of the influence of administrative and financial decentralization on spatial development processes are highlighted and modern tendencies and peculiarities of territorial differentiation of development in Ukraine formed under conditions of decentralization are revealed. It is determined that Ukraine failed to avoid the deepening territorial socio-economic differentiation, and the mechanisms of direct regulation and indirect influence turned out to be unable to resolve the problems of the unevenness of the endogenous community development potential and various efficiency of its use. The current state of spatial development in Ukraine is characterized by the following trends: (i) decreased level of interregional differentiation; (ii) increased differentiation at the level of districts under influence of budgetary decentralization mechanisms; (iii) increased level of differentiation of fiscal capacity of territorial communities having direct budgetary relations with the state budget; (iv) increased concentration of economic activity in “growth points”, which produces a tendency to expand the areas of depressiveness; (v) increased asymmetry between suburban areas and territorial communities remote from major cities; (vi) deepening the gap in financial capacities within the same district between the territorial communities that joined the united territorial communities and those that were not included. Directions of leveling the risks of strengthening the intraregional differentiation of the development of territorial communities under current conditions are determined as follows: – strengthening the role of the regional level of governance and specifying its functions under conditions of decentralization; – provision of the regional level of governance with financial resources, which will support the implementation of regional economic development projects; – transfer to the basic level of financial resources, which a community can direct to its own economic development, and not only to repair (or develop) social infrastructure or its maintenance; – propagation of development impetuses from cities to surrounding territories on the basis of their transformation into centers of the united territorial communities; – revision of the budgetary equalization mechanisms by including the local budgets revenues from rental payments in calculating the taxability of a territory.
For the last year, Ukraine's economy has been operating in conditions of economic turbulence caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. This has been accompanied by an increase in the uneven development of the regions, which is caused, along with macroeconomic constraints, and the peculiarities of the behavior of government, business and the population. The tendencies of economic development of the regions of Ukraine in the conditions of coronavirus crisis and their influence on the formation of tax revenues of local budgets by means of such methods as abstract-logical, comparative analysis, graphic visualization, statistical are evaluated. Analysis of economic development trends in the regions of Ukraine in the context of the coronavirus crisis and their impact on the formation of tax revenues of local budgets suggests that the economic, social and fiscal effects of the COVID-19 crisis are territorially differentiated. At the same time, the development of regions during the quarantine restrictions took place depending on behavioral and institutional factors that led to a number of irrational decisions by the subjects of financial and economic relations at different levels of government. Despite the cessation of a number of enterprises and the decline in business revenues, in 2020 tax revenues of local budgets increased. However, this was accompanied by a decrease in intergovernmental transfers and an increase in spending on curbing the spread of the pandemic. The outlined effects of declining economic activity of business, consumer spending (along with falling investment) can be considered a delayed effect of curtailing economic growth in the short term. One of the priority steps to overcome the negative trends should be an intensive increase in public investment, which involves co-financing projects from budget funds and business resources, establishing cooperation between state, regional and local levels of government.
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