Journal of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University
Latest Publications

Nowadays, sharp economic growth has increasingly depended on utilizing different resources causing environmental issues and hindering sustainable development. Consequently, governments of developed countries, the public sector, representatives of business structures, and scientists look at the circular economy as a way to support achieving sustainable development goals.  The article aims at researching the historical background of the development of circular economy, analyzing the basic approaches and their possible usage for spreading this concept in developing countries, such as Ukraine. It is mentioned that the concept of circular economy cannot be traced back to a single author or date when it appeared. The concept of circular economy was inspired by several schools of thought with overlapping approaches, which demonstrates the relevance of distinguishing evolutionary phases and framings of a concept. The article presents a historical overview of the development of the concept of circular economy since the 1960s. The stages of adoption of regulations in the EU in the field of promoting the transition to a circular economy are highlighted, key milestones and key actions that actively began in 2015 and continue to this day, are described. This positive experience should be taken as a basis in developing countries, where the circular economy is in its infancy. The article also analyzes the highly cited scientific papers in the Scopus Scientometric Database and the basic definitions of the concept of "circular economy".  Our findings indicate that the circular economy necessitates a systemic shift in the state policy of Ukraine, as well as economic science, and it should be aimed at developing a clear strategy and improving basic regulations in this area to increase the social responsibility of both businesses and local communities. The growth of a circular economy will benefit everyone within the limits of this planet.

The article substantiates the essence of dysfunctions as a key phenomenon that leads to deformation or partial failure to perform functions by the subjects of the internal consumer market. The features of the influence of socio-economic factors investigated within the functioning efficiency of the regional food market. The evaluation of the influence for the food market factors in the region carried out by classifying the factors by the influence sphere and the regulation degree, assessing the influence of the food market factors on the main indicator models. These models contain indicators, despite the existing system of statistical observation in the region, studying the relationships between factors and indicators characterizing food market and identifying the results of dysfunctions. A block of socio-economic determinants of realizing the potential of the consumer (food) market in the region is proposed. Correlation analysis of factors affecting the food market and the volume of products sold (agriculture, food production, beverages) has been carried out. The authors built a system of correlation between the socio-economic factors of the food market and the export of agricultural products and the food industry in the region. A system of interrelation of socio-economic factors and their influence on the wholesale turnover of food products in the region proposed, as well as a system of interrelation of socio-economic factors with the resulting "gross regional product". The nature of the emergence and the essence of dysfunctions in the regulation of the consumer market development are concretized. The consequences of state regulation dysfunctions for the development of the consumer goods internal market are determined and characterized. The main dysfunctional factors of influence on the regulators of the regional market development grouped in the aspect of competitive markets.

The article substantiates the main components of improving staff competencies in the face of change. It is determined that taking into account and combining "hard skills" and "soft skills" skills allow you to use the acquired knowledge to perform specific tasks in the workplace in a particular professional activity. Modern and traditional models, techniques and tools of personnel management are presented, according to which it is possible to clearly assess the difference in approaches to managing the competence of employees in the conditions of change. Based on the analysis of world practice, a list of methods is presented: discussions, brainstorming, Oxford debates, Case - Study, business and role - playing games, workshops, communication and management training, which are used to develop skills and abilities of employees. These methods allow expanding the educational opportunities of established forms of classes (lectures, seminars). The relationship between the acquisition of new and improvement of existing staff development competencies on the basis of training and coaching is shown. The proposed methods of acquiring competencies allow you to choose those competencies and methods of acquiring them that correspond to the individual characteristics of organizations. It is proved that the acquisition of competencies by staff allows identifying new competencies in employees, to form the need to use modern analytical and behavioral skills, providing greater opportunities for management skills and flexibility, dialectical thinking, ability to make creative decisions in unusual situations. It is substantiated that the combination of the SMART method in the acquisition of competencies significantly expands the possibilities of short-term learning, through the application of the concept of "lifelong learning". Different definitions of the essence of "competence" are analyzed, which allows emphasizing that when choosing different forms of education, in particular, trainings, different types of training it is necessary to use / apply modern methods and techniques. It has been proven that incompetent non-use by a staff of their knowledge, skills, experience and skills often leads to reduced profits and inefficient use of their potential.

The purpose of the article is to study the causal links of the existence of disparities in the socio-economic development of the country's regions and identify key measures to overcome existing disparities in certain areas, taking into account systemic transformations in the modern economy. The main disparities in the regional development of Ukraine are considered and the criteria of regional disparities are defined. It is established that the largest disparities in regional development occur according to the indicators observed in the case of investment per capita. The regions-leaders and outsiders in terms of socio-economic development are selected according to the selected indicators.The division of regions of Ukraine is carried out by means of the cluster analysis. The regions are divided into groups with similar characteristics for the four analyzed macroeconomic variables. The distances between the clusters were expressed using the Euclidean distance, which is widely used in this type of analysis. To combine objects into groups, Ward's method was used to create clusters with a small number of objects.After the analysis, the following conclusions were made: across the country, the regions are characterized by large differences in the level of GRP per capita, capital investment per capita and unemployment, with smaller differences in income levels; an unfavourable phenomenon is the reduction of investment in the southern regions, which in fact leads to low economic growth and future trends; the condition for reducing regional disparities is overcoming barriers to the development of less developed regions, which may occur primarily through the consistent strengthening of their economy, improving the structure and more efficient use of investment resources aimed specifically at strengthening entrepreneurship and professional development.

In current conditions, budget security is one of the essential components of financial security. The budget is the leading financial plan of the state and reflects most of the economic processes in the country; it also redistributes and accumulates revenues, provides financing of vital costs. Proper use of the budget as a financial basis for state regulation of a market economy should ensure the rule of economic and social processes in the interests of society to create conditions for the economic development of the country. Оn the one hand, and Budget security reflects the regularities of the functioning of the budget as an objective reality and, on the other hand, the subjective manifestations of human activity that find their expression in fiscal policy.The article aims to substantiate budget security's theoretical and conceptual basis at the regional and local levels.The article examines the theoretical essence of budget security at the regional and local levels. First, scientific approaches to the definition of "budget security" are generalized. Second, budget risks are considered, which under the influence of certain factors can be transformed into threats to budget security (discrete control; insolvency of taxpayers; political, military actions; destabilization of the financial sector of the region/communities; imbalance of revenues and expenditures; structure of revenues and expenses; external dependence violation of the stability of payments, debt growth (internal/external), stochastic errors, corrupt growth of the shadow sector, irrational budgeting). Third, the theoretical conceptualization of the concept of "threat", their essence and characteristics are substantiated. Fourth, understanding the nature of the concept of "budget risk" and "threat to budget security" is investigated. Finally, the functions and tasks that the budget security of territories should perform in the conditions of increasing financial and economic instability are considered.Coverage of the theoretical and conceptual basis of budget security of regions and communities, specification of existing and potential factors and risks of budget security, functions and tasks of budget security will minimize and neutralize various aspects and threats in budget security and increase budget security at regional and local levels and achieve important strategic guidelines.

The essence of openness of the economy as an object of theoretical study based on the analysis of publications and research of domestic and foreign scientists is explored in the article. On that basis, the authors give their interpretation of the concept. It is noted that the consistent expansion of economic openness is an important factor in modern economic development. Four groups of the division of national economies by the criterion of openness, namely by the share of exports in the country's GDP, are considered. The main conditions of an open economy are highlighted and the main tools (economic and political) with which it is possible to achieve the expansion of economic openness are given. An assessment of the current state and trends of openness of the national economy, based on the analysis of the main indicators of exports and imports of goods and services, as well as the geographical structure of Ukraine's foreign trade by recipient countries and donor countries of goods and services, has been made. It was found that in the current conditions of socio-economic instability, the openness of Ukraine’s economy remains at a fairly high level, which causes its close dependence on changes in external conditions. It is analyzed that the lion's share in the overall structure of Ukraine's foreign trade belongs to goods. The principal recipient countries of Ukrainian goods and services and donor countries in 2020 have been identified. The most common goods and services in the structure of exports and imports of Ukraine are also highlighted. In particular, it is noted that the most common goods for export were products of plant origin, base metals and articles base metals, fats and oils of animal or vegetable origin, and among services - transport services. At the same time, it was determined that the highest volume of imports in the general structure of Ukraine's foreign trade was achieved via machinery, equipment and machinery, electrical equipment and transport services import. It is generalized that the openness of Ukraine's economy is essential for its socio-economic development. Importantly to maximise the use of openness advantages that leads to productivity increasing and adaptation of production to growing competition that in turn is an important factor in improving the overall efficiency of the economy. It is recommended for ensuring the economic development of Ukraine, along with the foreign trade component of economic openness, it is also necessary to develop financial (including investment, technological, communicational) and political components.

Reputation management, as a new segment of the corporate governance system is experiencing significant dynamic impacts, particularly in the conditions of an information economy, which in the result creates a number of new challenges and, at the same time, opportunities. In the conditions of global absorption by the Internet of all spheres of human life and activity of companies the circumstances of formation and management of corporate reputation radically change. The purpose of the conducted study is an attempt to solve the issue of finding an effective tool for constructing the company's corporate reputation in the context of existing interests and expectations of its key stakeholders. It has been ground that a number of modern technological approaches and methods of reputation management for constructing corporate reputation of a company taking into account the interests of key stakeholders have been developed and tested at the theoretical and practical levels. Each of them is characterized by peculiarities of application, differently forming influence on groups of stakeholders, and also have certain advantages and disadvantages. It has been proved that the manifestation of advantages and disadvantages of each technological approach can be traced depending on the size of a company, type of activity and priorities of its key stakeholders. It has been determined that most technological approaches to reputation management are developed and focused on constructing a corporate reputation among the representatives of a consumer group of stakeholders. This is due to the strategic importance of this group of stakeholders, which most strongly expresses the level of competitiveness of a company in the market and ensures the financial stability of the business. It has been noted that the use of technological approaches in the process of constructing and maintaining a positive corporate reputation should be supported by the formation of the reputational assets of a company and the development of its corporate social responsibility. These activities require significant efforts and resources of a company. The scientific value of the conducted researches is a supplement to the theoretical and methodological basis of reputation management, in particular in the part of grounding and expediency of using technological approaches of constructing corporate reputation in accordance with the interests and expectations of key stakeholders of a company.

Teaching econometrics has been studied by a number of researchers, however, there is little information available on the quality of examination and on simplification of tests for demonstration the high-quality knowledge by students in concrete topics of econometrics or mathematical economics.One can note the following main goals of studying the basics of mathematical economics or econometrics by students: forming the notions of mathematical model and of modeling economic processes and phenomena; understanding a role of using mathematical models for economics research and obtaining scientific results; formatting skills for constructing mathematical models in economics, for solving economics problems by mathematical modeling.The main goal of this paper is to simplify test tasks, is to help to students to demonstrate the high-quality knowledge in certain areas of mathematical economics, and also is to construct a system of testing tasks, in which the emphasis was placed on the knowledge and understanding of an algorithm of solving the problem.In the present paper, to quality examine the student knowledge in the basics of mathematical economics, a certain system of tests was constructed and is considered. The main attention is also given to algorithms and techniques of solving some tasks (problems) of mathematical economics. The following topics of mathematical economics are viewed: constructing mathematical models of linear programming, the input-output model, the Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem, the simplex method of linear programming, the graphic method of linear and nonlinear programming, the method of Lagrange multipliers in mathematical optimization. Some primary basic results of studying linear programming, nonlinear programming, and the input-output model are noted.A new system of tests that satisfies the aim of this paper is modeled. The described tests require less time for solving than usual tasks. Here we do not focus on the repetition of auxiliary mathematical knowledge and arithmetic skills. These tests are simplified versions of standard tasks and help students to demonstrate knowledge in the mentioned topics of mathematical economics. The tasks are focused only on the knowledge of basic formulas, techniques, and connections between mathematical objects, economic systems, and their elements.

The article examines the modern realities of the functioning of the State Regional Development Fund as a budget program within the State Budget of Ukraine. The purpose of the study is to reveal the key features of the Fund functioning in modern conditions, to assess the current state of financial support of regional development projects, to identify the main problems in this field, and to develop possible solutions. The article substantiates the importance of sustainable development of territories as a mode of functioning of the region, characterized by harmonious positive changes in the most important spheres of life of the individual, society, and state, considering the interests of present and future generations. The change of the tendency of the gap between the declared and approved volumes of financing of regional development projects in 2015-2021 is estimated and the possible consequences of such gap are outlined. The volume and number of development projects in the regional and district dimension, funded by the Ukrainian State Regional Development Fund in 2020, are marked on the map of Ukraine. The need for uniform distribution of project financing based on the new zoning and elimination of "white spots" on the project map is emphasized. The ratio of the number of regional development projects in terms of settlements of implementation by their status was studied. Structural analysis of the use of funds of the Ukrainian State Regional Development Fund by purpose and type of work is performed; the average cost of regional development projects by category and in general are calculated and compared. Based on the analysis, the "bottlenecks" of the Ukrainian State Regional Development Fund functioning at the present stage are identified and the ways to solve them are proposed.

The analysis of models of activity of banking structures in the conditions of perfect and imperfect competition is carried out. Production functions for financial companies are considered. Models of the bank's work as an institution of delegated monitoring are described. Models of dynamics of financial resources are analyzed, allow to describe processes of evolution of own capital of bank depending on dynamics of the involved resources and the policy of accumulation realized by it. The considered models and methods are based on the definition of a bank (a financial company) as some abstract object, which is characterized by input and output parameters, as well as the function that connects them. This approach to some extent allows adapting traditional models of research of industrial enterprises and organizations to the analysis of the activities of banking structures. Therefore, one of the main tasks is to optimize internal functioning. Under such conditions, it is especially important to consider the bank as a holistic complex dynamic system operating in an unstable transition economy and the use of economic and mathematical methods and models to study the processes taking place in the bank, assess its effectiveness, identify areas and ways to improve management banking activities. Based on the analysis of the main economic and mathematical models of behavior of financial companies in a monopolistic market, we can conclude that each model characterizes a certain aspect of financial market development by the situation. Production functions for a bank (financial firm) are built, where the problem of classification of these factors into input and output is significant. A wide class of economic and mathematical models is considered, in which the activity of financial and banking institutions is treated as financial intermediaries. The theory of delegated monitoring is generalized, which in the general case assumes that in conditions when there is an effect of the growth of income from scale, individual lenders prefer to delegate functions of control (monitoring) of the behavior of entrepreneurs in whose projects they have invested to special intermediary firms. banks. The analysis of the development of the banking sector of Ukraine showed that a further gradual slowdown in its pace is expected due to changes in conditions in global financial markets and market saturation.