Debt sustainability analysis and its policy implications for Ukraine

Nowadays one of the relevant problems of economic development of Ukraine is the excessive increasing of the public debt that has a number of negative consequences for the financial system of the country. The article is devoted to the research of state’s debt sustainability concept. Special attention is paid to the development of an effective system of debt sustainability management. The aim of the article is to study the theoretical bases of the state’s debt sustainability, investigate scientific and methodological approaches to its management, analyze the public debt and debt sustainability of Ukraine. In order to achieve that goal, the following scientific methods were used: analysis and generalization, decomposition analysis, comparison and compilation. The authors analyzed the structure of the debt sustainability management system: objects, subjects, key principles, objectives, methods, instruments, etc. The list of key indicators of debt sustainability was substantiated and the authors compared their normative values in Ukraine and in world practice. Besides, the state and structure of public debt and the ratio of government debt to GDP were scrutinized. The obtained results proved the debt crisis deepening in Ukraine.

The acceleration of the global economy’s financialization with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the risks of financial markets volatility, boom and bust cycles, violation of price stability, and debt sustainability. In such conditions, the high degree of Ukraine economy’s external openness, significant amounts of external debt, and lack of domestic investment and credit resources raise the issue of external financial threats to the national economy. This study aims to identify the risks of financialization and debt accumulation across the globe, specify protective arrangements and vulnerabilities of Ukraine’s credit system to external shocks and develop a set of policy actions for global risks mitigation in Ukraine. To achieve this goal, available theoretical sources and policy studies were reviewed, and international databases of financial indicators have been analyzed. As a result, the underdevelopment of the financial system in Ukraine and insufficient use of the credit levers by the private sector are revealed, which impede economic growth but simultaneously mitigate the impact of external shocks in Ukraine’s economy. On the other hand, high external debt reliance is confirmed, which increases the risks of financialization and cross-border capital flows for Ukraine’s economy. A set of financial and organizational measures (targeted at eliminating credit and debt distortions in Ukraine and creating a financial basis for sustainable economic growth) are devised; they refer to development of the national capital market, fiscal policy adjustment, acceleration of the foreign direct investments inflows, shifts in the NBU’s monetary policy, and the management of foreign exchange reserves.

The paper explores theoretical and practical aspects of forecasting the government debt in Ukraine. A visual analysis of changes in the amount of government debt was conducted, which has made it possible to conclude about the deepening of the debt crisis in the country. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is considered as the basic forecasting model; besides, the model work and its diagnostics are estimated. The EViews software package illustrates the procedure for forecasting the Ukrainian government debt for the ARIMA model: the series for stationarity was tested, the time series of monthly government debt was converted into stationary by making a number of transformations and determining model parameters; as a result, the most optimal specification for the ARIMA model was chosen.
Based on the simulated time series, it is concluded that ARIMA tools can be used to predict the government debt values.