Issue #3 (Volume 7 2018)

Significant gap in investment resources for financing Sustainable Development Goals can be overcome with the revitalization of the corporate social responsibility mechanism of the financial sector institutions, for example banks and stock exchanges as the largest players in the global financial sector. The most relevant for them are Goals 1, 5, 8, 10, 13, 17. Incorporating these goals into activities of the financial sector institutions requires not only the activation of their CSR mechanism in the directions indicated by the targets, but also the radical restructuring of all business processes and the reorientation of their overall sustainability strategy. Analysis of current sustainability reporting disclosure by financial sector institutions in global and regional aspects was conducted. Based on the analysis, the authors define the role of CSRs of banks and stock exchanges in SDG financing as follows: banks – ensuring their own sustainability and efficiency through CSR mechanisms, formation of new tools, methods and technologies of financial support of SDG; stock exchanges – minimization of information asymmetry in investor decision making, taking into consideration ESG criteria, formation of exemplary disclosure practices and new markets and market benchmarks by listing companies.

Over the last five years, Ukraine suffers from armed conflicts that cause substantial losses in the state budget. In this context, shaping the prospects and developing measures for the post-conflict reconstruction of the state and its economy is an important problem. The very possibility and the effectiveness of such measures will depend on the country's financial potential as well as on the financial strength of its entities. This potential is dynamic and influenced by information technology, without which any institution cannot go.
Given the particular significance of the financial potential IT-transformation, the role of digital forms of money, crowdfunding and initial coin offering (ICO) was identified. It is substantiated that while overcoming the consequences of military conflicts, their implementation facilitates the attraction and acceleration of the financial resources movement. By generalizing the developments and practical experience of Ukrainian fintech-companies, the principles of such developments application for assessing the external financial environment of economic entities and conducting financial analysis have been shaped.

This review aims at assessing the economic evaluation of public programmes such as the expanded public works programmes (EPWP) in South Africa. The South African government earmarked the EPWP for departments and municipalities to implement projects that are meaningful for economic transformation and inclusive growth. This study argues that economic evaluation of public programmes must consider the interplay of complex decisions making on resource allocations and take into account consequences thereafter in a systematic way. This review paper adopted a qualitative document analysis, where data is drawn from research reports on programme evaluation, policy documents, EPWP evaluation reports, books and articles drawn from accredited journals. Key findings from this study draw attention to unfulfilled great expectations to sustain job creation in an emerging economy in South Africa. Results also revealed that although the M&E design was suitable for the evaluation, it was not compared to any other alternative cost-effective measurement strategy to assess the economic value of the EPWP in South African public service. Based on the lessons from EPWP, this study recommends an integrative approach to evaluate job creation programmes in order to settle on the economic value of EPWP.

This article examines the special use of tobacco warehouse receipts as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account in Virginia during part of the British Colonial period. These receipts met the three criteria necessary for them to be a type of money. When confidence in a system of currency with coins is present, this more conventional form of money takes precedence. A respected economic form of currency with coins has all three elements of money: medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. Tobacco warehouse receipts were used as a form of money in Colonial Virginia. They were used since there was insufficient gold or silver for the commerce in British Colonial Virginia at that time. Also, the concept of store of value is examined in detail.

Public procurement has been the subject of research for a long time in the work of scientists from both the economically developed countries and those undergoing the transformation of public finances. Their research comes from different points of view, namely from the essence of the definition, the process of their conduct, the problems of the legislative framework to their effective implementation. In addition, the issue of electronic public procurement, which can greatly enhance the transparency of this process and reduce the level of corruption inherent in this area in all countries without any exception, is becoming increasingly relevant in recent times.
Based on the conducted analysis, the article proposes the definition of the term of public procurement, defines the principles of public procurement as a controlled subject in the electronic environment of their conduct, and systematizes the basic indicators characterizing the effectiveness of public procurement. Based on the Granger causality method, an analysis of efficiency was performed and the basic indicators determining the level of savings in the public procurement system were determined. It is established that the use of Granger causality in changing the amount of savings in the system of public procurement gives only a quantitative characteristic. For a more complete picture quantitative analysis is supplemented with qualitative parameters.