Yuri Yevdokimov

The main goal of the article is to analyze the role and influence of economic freedom on macroeconomic stability. For this purpose, the authors used the integrated index of economic freedom, calculated by the Heritage Foundation and Democracy Index. It is noted that this index indicator was calculated by the experts from the World Bank using the index of voice and accountability. In the paper, the authors used the multinational panel dataset for 11 countries of the EU for the purpose of checking the correlation between economic freedom, democracy and macroeconomic stability. It should be highlighted that the abovementioned 11 countries are related by the fluctuation of economic growth during the transformation process (1996–2016) from communist party to the democracy and political pluralism. In addition, the authors proposed to add the indicators of political stability and trade openness, which allowed to take into account implementation of flexible macroeconomic instruments, including monetary policy, which towards increasing the economic growth, employment and financial development of the countries. The findings are directed received using the regression equation with fixed and random effects showed the high level of correspondence of the model used with the original observations. Despite the chosen approach to estimate the macroeconomic stability, the findings showed that there is a positive and statistically significant impact of economic freedom and democracy on macroeconomic stability.

The paper deals with analysis of the preconditions of alternative energy market development in Ukraine. In this case study, the authors analyzed the EU experience. The results of analysis showed that the leader of the EU countries in renewable energy has already achieved the target (20%), which had been indicated. In addition, the findings showed that the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption has been increasing from year to year. The authors allocate that, according to the Ukrainian potential, biogas is the most perspective one among alternative resources. Moreover, results of analysis showed that Ukraine has the huge potential of agricultural sector. In this direction, the authors allocated the main types of the agricultural activities, which have the highest potential of biogas production: sugar factories, corn silage and poultry farms. The authors underlined that biogas spreading is restrained by the stereotypes that green investments are not attractive for investors. In order to analyze the economic efficiency of investments to the biogas installation, the authors calculated the profit from the biogas installation for poultry farm. The authors made two scenarios for calculation. The first – the whole volume of energy, which was generated from the biogas unit, will be sold with feed-in tariff. The second – the farm covers its own needs in electricity, the rest will be sold with feed-in tariff. The findings showed that the first scenario is more attractive. Moreover, the farm could receive higher profit if it installed the biogas in 2016, not in 2017. In addition, based on the EU experience and features of farm functioning, the authors approved that the biogas installation has not only the economic effect (profit and additional profit) for company, but also ecological and social effects for rural area, where this farm was located.