Methodical approach to assessing the level of the households` livelihoods

Inflation is an important macroeconomic issue that has continued to dominate discussions at major economic fora over time. Governments all over the world are concerned about its rising trend because of its pervasive effect on economic performance. One intriguing fact about inflation is that it is both the cause and effect of certain policy actions of government. Several studies have been conducted on the effect of inflation on economic activities in developing and developed nations, but studies on its cause, particularly in developing nations, are scant. This paper aims at identifying major factors that cause inflation in Nigeria. Based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation method, the study shows empirical support for significant impact of external debt, exchange rate, fiscal deficits, money supply and economic growth on inflation. It further shows previous period or lagged inflation rate as a significant determinant of current inflation rate. However, the study produced no evidence of significant longrun impact of interest rate on the rate of inflation in Nigeria. The study recommends economic reforms that target foreign exchange inflow through increased export trade, as well as a paradigm shift away from deficit budgeting. There is also a need for infrastructural and institutional reforms to eliminate or, at least, minimize the impact of structural inequity on output prices.

In spite of the large number of normative and legal documents dealing with gender issues, a problem of ensuring equal rights of men and women does still exist in Ukraine. The article is mainly devoted to the gender inequality of payment for labor. The purpose of the study is to highlight the peculiarities of gender asymmetry of payment for labor, to outline directions for reducing it, and to make proposals on achieving gender equality of payment for labor. The labor market analysis in 2013-2017 showed that gender gap of payment for labor depends on the type of economic activity. The study also found the largest gender-based payment gap in the highest legislative body, the Ukrainian parliament, due to the small number of women in its composition, which in some way affects all social sectors. In conclusion, a number of gender differentiation features in payment for labor were singled out. The authors had proposed ways to overcome the gender gap and suggested appropriate measures to be taken. It is necessary to establish gender quotas in the parliament and to impose fines for their non-compliance, a similar proposal applies to senior positions of state institutions. There is also a need to inform society about the topic under study, to develop programs for women in rural areas, and to introduce indicators of gender inequality in enterprise reporting.

The article is devoted to a comprehensive assessment and improvement of the level of regional development on the basis of determining the effectiveness of the mechanism of sustainable development of the region, developing methodical principles for the formation of regional and local strategies for ensuring sustainable development.
The purpose is to substantiate the methodology and means of integral assessment to implement the principle of equalization of sustainable development of regions in the aspect of information and innovation support by means of theories of social development, systems, clustering of the economy and economic information theory.
A methodological approach was proposed for assessing the level and trends of sustainable development of the region, based on the analysis of declarations, program and final documents of UN conferences on economic, social and environmental issues. The approach is based on the use of an integral index whose evaluation and analysis results can be used to solve problems and are implemented in the process of making sound management decisions. This approach made it possible to formulate, by means of factor analysis, a refined system of indicators that characterize economic, social and environmental sustainability parameters.
The typical groups of industrial regions of Ukraine were identified and the level of socio-ecological and economic development was assessed. This made it possible, based on the procedures for reducing the dimension and constructing generalized indicators, to calculate the rating for each calculated integral indicator as a generalized estimate. The calculations that have been carried out make it possible to determine the trends of sustainable development of individual regions on the factors of development and to justify promising directions for effective growth and negative trends, which require the greatest attention from the state authorities and local self-government bodies.