Victor Chentsov

Despite positive transformations in higher education in Ukraine since 2014 when a new Law was introduced, the system of public funding still remains a highly centralized and strongly budgetary dependent based on the state planning methods, which in the situation of lack of resources becomes more imbalanced and inefficient.
The current system of allocation of the “state order for training the specialists with higher education” does not ensure an equal and fair competition among top 10 universities and the rest, especially regional, and the system cannot guarantee state-funded places to all applicants with high results of the External Independent Testing exams. At the same time, only a small share of graduates work on the specialty they acquired. The situation on the labor market does not encourage graduates to be employed in public institutions, which is harmful for the public sector of economy, especially in the regions. It proves that the system of distribution and allocation of government funding between higher education institutions in Ukraine needs urgent reforming.
The objective is to analyze the current system of higher education funding in Ukraine in its national dimension and local perspective, and to develop proposals for its improvement, considering the selected good practices and using the following methods: literature analysis, method of retrospective analysis to research budgetary expenditures, determining the Net Present Value for calculating the government cost. Finally, a feasible proposal to reform the mechanism of public higher education funding was developed.

The marketing environment of universities’ activities in Ukraine is changing dramatically. As a result, the system of chances and risks for universities is constantly changing. Therefore, timely detection of changes in the marketing environment and effective management ensure the competitiveness of the universities. The aim of the article is to identify the marketing environment dominants of the Ukrainian universities, as well as to assess the efficiency of marketing tools application in the system of universities’ management. On the basis of statistical and primary data analyses, the higher education market in Ukraine both at the state and regional levels has been assessed and the university’s dependence on market sources of funding has been substantiated. As the modern domains of the marketing environment of universities, changes in the distribution of state-funded places, the impact of external independent testing, and the intensification of competition between universities are determined. The influence of external independent testing on structural intersegmental changes concerning the choice of specialties of universities’ entrants is proved. The comparative characteristics of the marketing management tools in Ukrainian and Polish universities are considered. The obtained results outline the importance of strengthening the marketing orientation of management in universities.

During the post-Great Recession period, macroeconomic stability had more often been threatened by socioeconomic shocks due to the rising of public discontent with the high unemployment rate and poverty, the activation of radical parties and movements, and the aggravation of the geopolitical confrontation in the world. Depending on the type and depth of such shocks, they become politically generated shocks and, in particular, affect the monetary sphere. The article investigates three types of politically generated shocks and their impact on the monetary sphere. It has been found out that the shocks generated by political populism are characterized by fiscal domination in the economy, the use of monetary measures in the budget deficit financing. Shocks arising after the use of international sanctions against certain countries have an external origin and primarily cause the increase in national exchange markets volatility. On the whole, macroeconomic and, especially, monetary instability is the result of the great shocks for the economy, the depth and duration of which are determined by the nature of the crisis, particularly, when country participates in the military conflict. The aforementioned types of politically generated shocks are analyzed based on the experience of countries such as Argentina, Turkey, and Ukraine, which at one time introduced the regime of inflation targeting in monetary policy, but were forced to modify it influenced by political and economic instability.

In the context of countries integration into the world economic space, agricultural sector is one of the priorities and strategically important sectors of the national economy. Development of instruments aimed to increase investment potential of this sector is therefore an important component of the country’s economy growth. The article proposes a science-based model of the impact of the agricultural sector on the economic development level of countries trying to move towards European integration.
It was found that the employment rate (+58.4) has the largest influence on the rate of GDP change in the studied group of countries (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia). The impact of the gross value added of the manufacturing sector on its economic growth is positive (+44.6). The negative foreign direct investment ratio in the model (–40.3) may be due to the fact that the indicator in the studied countries is still largely influenced by the intervention of the state mechanism, significant uncertainty and risk, which is a deterrent to the overall economic development. An important result of the study was that foreign direct investment had a negative impact on economic growth in developing countries. Further development of the investment potential of a country’s agricultural sector provides for a radical acceleration of scientific and technological progress and, on this basis, a reduction in the cost of a unit of agricultural products and food and an increase in their competitiveness in the domestic and world markets.

The article presents a comparative analysis of state funding of higher education as a factor of its effectiveness in European countries. The analysis is conducted on the example of countries where the share of state budget expenditures on education no less than 11%.
The assumption that education is the main factor in the formation of a responsible citizens capable to provide the job themselves, and to provide qualified professionals for the country, that means to promote economic and cultural growth, is taken as a basis of the article.
The structure of state expenditures on education in general and the amount of higher education funding in countries under consideration is analyzed.
The correlation between the amount of expenditures on higher education and the indicators of the quality index of the higher education system QS World University Rankings is analyzed. Also the correlation analysis between other indexes, that characterize the general level of human development and quality of business as a result of public investment in training of highly qualified specialists, is done.

The transition to future-oriented medium-term budget planning has been an important innovation in the budget process of Ukraine. Since then, the main budget indicators are calculated for the next three years with a forecast that allows for systemic reforms in several areas. This paper aims to identify problems of implementing budget planning for generating an envisaged and balanced budget in conjunction with the priorities of the state. The current status of budget planning and budget performance is analyzed by reviewing budget legislation, budget reporting, information-analytical and presentation data of state authorities and local governments, the experience of developed countries that have achieved some success in medium-term budget planning in terms of income and spending. The paper also reveals the features and advantages of medium-term budget planning based on the result; explores the approaches to transparent, effective, and high-quality use of budget funds with a limited potential of the state to increase tax revenues. The implementation of budget planning is due to the need for further development of the budget process in Ukraine towards increasing predictability, transparency, stabilizing the budget in the medium term, and solving important problems of efficient and high-quality use of budget funds for economic and social recovery.

Transparency is a fundamental necessity for the insurance market in the modern fast-changing and digital world. The study aims to establish, based on bibliometric analysis, the research trends and subject areas of the insurance market transparency, including the impact of digital technologies, regulatory initiatives, and the internal policies of insurance companies. A bibliometric analysis of papers published in the journals indexed by the Scopus database for the years 1988–2023 was conducted to achieve this goal. Five clusters have been identified based on the analysis of the shared use of keywords, demonstrating the multidisciplinary nature of the research subject. They cover government regulation and risk management; ethics; technological innovations in increasing transparency; transparency of prices and costs in health insurance; and state medical insurance transparency. The analysis of insurance market transparency trends has allowed identifying four key stages of development: post-crisis regulatory mechanisms (2013–2016), Solvency II regulation effectiveness (2017–2019), transparency during the pandemic (2020–2021), and the impact of digital innovations since 2021. Spatial clustering made it possible to identify five groups of countries whose representatives are co-authors of research on insurance market transparency. The leading countries in research on insurance market transparency are the USA, the UK, and Germany.

Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (projects No. 0122U000774 “Digitalization and transparency of public, corporate and personal finance: the impact on innovation development and national security”, No. 0123U101945 “National security of Ukraine through the prevention of financial fraud and money laundering: war and post-war challenges”). This research was funded under the research subsidy of the Faculty of Organization and Management of the Silesian University of Technology in Poland for the year 2023 (13/990/BK_23/0178).