No abstract

Global digitization forces modern enterprises to respond to the rapid changes in the external environment and adapt to it. As a result, existing business models are being transformed in the areas of production, promotion, communication, calculations, interaction with partners and consumers. In this context, there is growing scientific interest in exploring theoretical and practical aspects of the economy digitization and its impact on the peculiarities of the economic entities functioning. Features of functioning of classical and digital economic entities on the basis of criterion approach have been investigated, using the following criteria: factors of production, form of business organization, location of workplace, production outcome, economic processes, connection with on-demand economy, methods of payment, relations with other enterprises, professions enhancing the image of the enterprise, communication method between employees, saving and processing of information, company promotion tools and consumer communication. The main statistical indicators of the digitalization impact on the activity of enterprises in the world and in Ukraine in 2018 have been analyzed. The feasibility of using digital economy tools has been outlined. Advantages and disadvantages of the impact of digital transformation space on the enterprise have been identified.

A comparative analysis of the practice of implementing e-government in different countries gives an opportunity to identify the advantages and disadvantages of existing information systems, find ways to optimize and improve the efficiency of public administration. The purpose of this study was to identify the leading countries in e-Government development for comparison with Ukraine, and to apply their positive experience in implementing e-portals, creating the necessary regulatory framework, disseminating the Internet, and attracting citizens to participate in the processes of forming the information society. The article explores the dynamics of E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and E-Participation Index (EPI), analyzes the achievements of developed countries in e-government, and identifies leading countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Spain whose experience is useful for its application in Ukraine. The qualitative analysis of the achievements of different countries was based on the UN e-Government knowledgebase and the United Nations E-Government Survey from 2003 to 2018, information from e-Governance research articles, government website data, newsletters, and research findings. The study of e-government practice in leading countries and in Ukraine shows that the development of public information space has many similarities and the process of e-government formation in developing countries in many spheres follows the path of developed countries, preserving their own national features. The authors of the article have identified the main common components of this process, outlined aspects of improving the practice of e-government in the direction of building an effective system of public administration.

A global trend of economic development is the transition to the formation of a new economic paradigm – the information economy. Ability to generate knowledge and innovation is a prerequisite for improving the competitiveness of the country and its regions; as well, it determines the pace of their social and economic development. In this context, the need to determine the levels of the development of the information economy and its structural components (educational, research and innovation) in the regions of the country is actualized. The purpose of the article is to develop and test a methodological toolkit for assessing the development of the information economy in terms of its structural components, that will allow for the formation of regional clusters by the intensity of educational, innovation and research components, and to identify priority vectors for stimulating the development of the information economy at the macro- and meso-economic levels. When developing methodological tools, the authors proceeded from existing methodological approaches in the world, the possibility of adapting them to national specifics, as well as the potential of statistical bases. In order to cluster the regions of Ukraine by the development level of educational, innovation and research components of the information economy, the k-means algorithm is used. The conducted cluster analysis showed that processes of the formation of the information economy in Ukraine are developing unevenly and are in the stage of formation. More regions of the state fall into the cluster of problematic regions with low levels of the development of educational, innovation and research components; leadership in the development level of the information economy is demonstrated by Kharkiv region, assigned to the cluster of regions with the intensive development of the information economy; in addition, a cluster of perspective regions with the level of the moderate development of the information economy is highlighted. The research made it possible to find out the main problems and identify areas of regional imbalances in the development of the information economy, including in terms of its structural components. In conclusions, the authors proposed directions to improve the approaches to the government control of the processes of the information economy evolvement, based on specific features of the regions, their smart specialization, actual capacities and the achieved level of the development of the information economy components.

The focus of the research is to develop recommendations of smart specialization (SS) for Ukrainian policymakers using European approaches. The authors revealed that the main SS projects are presented in such sectors as agri-food, industrial modernization and energy. More than 12 EU countries were the plot for conducted analysis of SS, as a result of which the level of activity of each country was determined. The creation of consortiums, including SMEs, associations, universities and other participants, disclosed the successful way of SS realization. The structure of SME’s innovative potential in Ukraine was identified underlining their main characteristic features like types of innovations and innovative activity, differentiation according to enterprise size, their regional distribution. The authors explored lack of innovations on regional and national level and significant territorial disparities, which could be eliminated through policy implementation of regional SS. The existing legislative norms for possibility of SS implementation in Ukraine were analyzed due to correspondence with the EU ones. The analysis provides the opportunity to consider them only as general framework documents without any action plans and sectoral prioritization at all. The weak points of these law documents are emphasized. As a result of research, the authors developed recommendations presented by direct action plan for Ukrainian policymakers, which include such activities as underlining key priorities (especially ICT applicability in every SS project) and their correspondence with the EU ones; eliminating regional imbalances by focusing on innovation development and reorientation of some regions according to SS priorities; respecting regional existing capacities; providing organizational mechanism for cooperation of stakeholders and financial mechanism for SS support through the EU structural funds.

The global trend of socio-economic development of the leading countries of the world is the formation of an information economy. In conditions of a new type of economy formation, sectors ensuring the country's economic growth and increasing its international competitiveness, capable of generating innovations and conducting high-quality research, play a special role. In this context is increasing the scientific interest in issues of evaluation of information economy development and of determining the influence of research, innovation and educational component on its dynamics. The comparative analysis has shown that in the world practice different methods of such evaluation have been worked out, among which the UN methodology for calculating the Information and Communication Technologies Development Index (IDI) was high lightened within the article. The analytical characterization of the Eastern Partnership countries under the IDI was conducted in the context of its sub-indices. This analysis showed the failure of existing techniques to fully reflect the trends of the information economy in the current turbulent socio-economic conditions. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the methodical approach to the formation of a comprehensive integral indicator of the information economy development with a three-tier structure (educational, innovation, and research components); it is based on the global experience of relevant calculations. The methodical approach includes two stages: a component analysis (calculation of partial indices of educational, innovation, research component of the information economy) and a system analysis (calculation of comprehensive integral index). The proposed approach is tested on the example of Ukraine as a representative of the Eastern Partnership group. On the basis of the index and statistical analysis results the main problem points of the information economy development in the country were identified; and in particular -in the context of a distinct educational, innovation and research component. The authors come to the conclusion about the necessity of development of strategic cooperation of subjects within the Quadruple Helix model (business enterprise sector, higher education sector, government sector and private non-profit sector) to solve identified problems for each component of the information economy.

Within the article, a comprehensive study of the state budget deficit in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries is presented, the effectiveness of managing it is determined. Considerable attention is paid to the deepening of methodical aspects of the assessment of trends in the formation of revenues and expenditures of the identified budgets, the algorithm for defining the deficit of the budget is detailed and it is tested in practice. The obtained results provide an opportunity to establish that the size of the state's deficit depends in part on the economic development of the state and at the same time, its existence can have a positive effect on the growth rate of the national economy. In order to establish the peculiarities of such interaction, a comparative analysis between the deficit ratio of the state budgets and the level of GDP in the CEE countries is carried out. The study confirmed the thesis on the correlation between these indicators and it was also possible to determine in the long run (2007-2017) how these parameters changed. It is established that the accelerated pace of GDP growth with simultaneous growth of the state budget deficit is an indicator of its effective management, as economic growth allows for new, unplanned revenues and other incomings that will reduce the size of the gap between revenues and expenditures of such a budget. In turn, in case of rapid growth of the deficit against the backdrop of insignificant growth rates of the country's GDP, it shows that some of the country's financial resources are spent inefficiently and are not used to stimulate economic development in the state. In this case, the funds are spent on the social sphere maintenance, raising the level of economic provision of citizens of the state. However, such processes can take place only in the short term, since the deficit itself will need to be further covered by other revenue items of the budget. Taking into consideration the outlined, it is stated in the article, that improper management of the state budget deficit may have long-term negative consequences for the functioning of the entire national economy, and their solution cannot be implemented quickly.

In the article was determined that the developed infrastructure increases the investment attractiveness of the region, provides better affordability of the territories and lower transactional ones costs. These factors promote the intensity of financial, informational, commodity and human flows of both internal and external, which activate the neighboring types of economic activities and lead to the normalization of market mechanisms. Territories in this way maximize their comparative advantages. These processes lead to inter-regional alignment of the market and stabilization of social factors. The proper level of infrastructure provision makes a significant contribution to improving public well-being. The practical value represent grounded in the article the principles of identification points of infrastructural growth,  strategic directions for modernization of infrastructure sphere in regional economics and management model of its implementation.In the article also the conception of infrastructural standard was given. This one is mining the formation of the configuration, methods and technology of services rendering.