Yuriy Bilan

Under the conditions of the development of market relations, the insurance protection of agricultural producers plays an essential role in the economic stabilization of their development. Insurance can be one of the most effective tools for managing production, market and legal risks, but agricultural insurance is not well developed in the country. The purpose of the article is to study the current state and prospects for further development of the Ukrainian agrarian insurance system, based on developing the strategy of development of the latter with maximum consideration of needs and interests of all its participants.
General scientific methods of scientific knowledge and research of economic phenomena are used for the achievement of the goal set in the article, such as the abstract-logical method, comparison method, monographic method, tabular method, graphical and scientific generalization.
The article investigates features of the present state and general tendencies of functioning of the Ukrainian agrarian insurance system and outlines general features and prospects of further development of the latter, which are based on development of the strategy of system development with maximum consideration of needs and interests of all its participants. A set of principles is defined on which the strategy of development of the Ukrainian agricultural insurance system should be based and their further functioning in the format of the model of private-public partnership is proposed within the framework of the developed strategy. This represents a balance between public-private partnerships. The results of the study can be used for further scientific developments in this direction. The implementation of the measures proposed in the framework of the strategy for the development of the Ukrainian agrarian insurance system through the effective use of state resources and maximum use of the agrarian market and the insurance market should ensure stability of both agricultural production in general and income of the rural population in particular. This is a prerequisite for stable economic growth of the country and an increase in the welfare of its citizens.

The Ukrainian market of insurance services is at the stage of formation and development in the absence of a clearly defined model for further functioning. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the trends in the functioning of the Ukrainian insurance services market in the period of 2010–2021.
The results of the study reveal the general trends in the functioning of the Ukrainian insurance services market in terms of transformational features of the market composition (a significant reduction in the number of insurers – by 2.5 times), concluded insurance contracts (a significant increase by 3.5 times), market concentration (moderately concentrated), the level of insurance penetration (the average value was 1.64%).
Considerable attention is paid to the interpretation of the main indicators of market activity and their dynamics, in particular, in terms of insurance premiums and payments (the level of insurance payments was 32.2%), assets of insurers (increase by 1.5 times), formed insurance reserves (a noticeable increase by 3 times), digital transformation (in terms of internetization, individualization, digitalization).
The study made it possible to form promising vectors for the development of the Ukrainian insurance services market based on the model of social responsibility of participants in the insurance process with clear digitalization outlines and the formation of insurance relations based on innovative approaches.

Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the Ministry of education, science, research and sport of the Slovak Republic [grant VEGA 1/0689/20 Digital economy and changes in the education system to reflect labour market demands].

The creative industries sector is snowballing, and many developing countries see it as a tool for national and local development. Given the regional specificity, political narratives adopted in developed countries may not apply in economies under transition. This paper aims to evaluate the current state of creative business in emerging countries such as Kazakhstan. Adopting the design of a qualitative method, 34 semi-structured interviews were conducted with entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan’s creative industries. The Nvivo 10 qualitative data analysis software was used for processing the data. The interviews help to understand better the factors affecting the development of the creative industry. In general, results indicate insufficient support from government agencies, lack of accessible resources to support entrepreneurs (65% of respondents used their capital, while 17% of them were forced to apply for loans from a bank), information availability, and skills shortage. Shortage of skills is also related to the creative brain drain in Kazakhstan. One of the main problems is access to materials and technology since most of the resources are foreign-made and imported.

Acknowledgment
The authors appreciate the grant funding for young scientists Scientific and (or) in the years 2020–2022 the MES science project number AR08052483 “Creative Industries: methodological aspects of classification and quantitative measurements in the Republic of Kazakhstan” in the framework of the budget program 217 “Development of science”.

The study explores factors influencing research and development (R&D) costs in developing economies. The findings may inform the decision-making process for firms keen on innovation-related expenditures. The paper examines 164 Kenyan firms using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data for 2018. These factors are classified into three broad categories. These are firm characteristics (age, size, and ownership), business competitiveness (export orientation, innovation strategies, and informal competition), and technology upgrade challenges (skills availability, financial constraint, and technology incompatibility). The findings reveal that approximately 11% of firms incurring R&D costs export their products (services). Exportation, skilled labor availability, and degree of informal competition correlate positively and significantly to R&D expenditure. The largest ownership (%) has a marginal effect on the outcome variable. Moreover, firm size substantially influences R&D costs, with small to medium firms incurring lower costs than their larger counterparts. However, firm age, innovation strategy, financial constraint, and technology incompatibility weakly influence the outcome variable. The product innovation strategy’s interaction effect with skills, firm age and informal competition substantially impacts R&D costs. Notably, firms’ R&D spending must be in tandem with the domestic informal competition intensity, skills availability, and foreign market targeted. The study employs the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression in examining the relationship between the predictors and the dependent variable.

This paper aims to quantify the impact of selected demographic, financial, and economic factors on the propensity to do business in the taxi sector of the sharing economy. The sample comprised 375 taxi drivers from the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. Data were collected using the query method via a questionnaire in April 2022. The structure of the respondents is divided into shared taxi service providers (N = 294) and traditional taxi service providers (N = 69). The study selected 14 factors: demographic (4), financial (7), and economic (3). The SEM approach was applied to evaluate the hypotheses. Shared taxi providers have a stronger propensity to do business than traditional taxi drivers. Demographic characteristics of a traditional taxi driver are the most significant factors with a strong influence on the propensity to do business (βS = 0.525 > βT = 0.425). On the other hand, the financial and economic characteristics of shared taxi drivers strongly influence the propensity to do business (βT = 0.565 > βS = 0.212). The characteristics of the enterprise are on the verge of significance in relation to the tendency to do business with shared taxi drivers, as opposed to traditional taxi drivers. For traditional taxi drivers, there is a strong influence of the characteristics of the enterprise on the propensity to do business (βT = 0.476 > βS = 0.026). This study contributes to understanding how participating in sharing economy may stimulate the propensity to do business.

Successful achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, is impossible without proper financial support, especially after the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite more than million academic papers related to SDG 7, only very few of them address the financial aspects of achieving SDG 7. To test the hypothesis, “SDG 7 related academic studies ignore the issue of investment in general and responsible investment in particular”, a meta-analysis is performed that includes a number of specific instruments and technics such as SciVal by Elsevier, VosViewer, Google trends, Google Books Ngram Viewer and Google Data. The results show a lack of appropriate academic support (methodology, empirical results, econometric models etc.) for practitioners to fill the existing financial gap and successfully achieve SDG 7. Among 1.2 million SDG 7 related papers, less than 100 deal with the financial gap problem measured by trillions of dollars in achieving SDG 7. This paper identifies the most promising and relevant topics for study related to SDG 7 and investment: the impact of the pandemic on decisions in the energy sector; efficiency of SDG 7 investment support and methodology for its assessment; green bonds, green loans, sovereign green bonds as responsible investment tools to advance SDG 7.

Acknowledgments
Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges support from the Supreme Council of Ukraine (0122U201796).
The research was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy Sciences (VEGA), project No 1/0364/22: Research on eco-innovation potential of SMEs in the context of sustainable development.

The development of investment processes is significant for a country’s economy, economic development, and the expansion of market opportunities. The successful functioning of the national economy in the global economic space requires its integration into the international finance system. The impact of foreign direct investment on the economy of host countries remains relevant. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of foreign direct investments on the Gross Domestic Product of Turkey for the years 1990–2021. The data set includes foreign direct investments, exchange rate levels, and the Gross Domestic Product of Turkey and was used in logarithmic form in the empirical assessments. The results show a positive and statistically significant relationship between foreign direct investments and Gross Domestic Product. A long-term integrative relationship exists between the independent variables (foreign direct investments and exchange rate) and the dependent variable (Gross Domestic Product). Consequently, this implies that a 1% increase in foreign direct investment results in a 0.35% increase in Gross Domestic Product, holding other factors constant.

There is no doubt that women play a vital role in all aspects of economic activities around the globe. However, despite the great efforts that governments have made over the past three decades to increase women’s integration into the labor market, their participation is still relatively low compared to men. On the other hand, economic literature argues that the government can use fiscal policy tools such as tax revenue and spending to decrease gender inequality in the labor market. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of government spending and tax revenue shocks on the female labor force participation rate (the share of women in the total labor force) in Egypt. Annual time-series data were collected from the Central Bank of Egypt and the World Bank from 1990 to 2021, where the vector autoregressive (VAR) model and impulse response functions have been used. The results suggest that government spending and tax revenue shocks increase gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, female labor force participation, and inflation. Results validated the research hypotheses and showed that a one standard deviation shock to either government spending or tax revenue has a positive impact on female labor force participation. Therefore, the study recommends that using an expansionary fiscal policy may increase the accessibility of Egyptian women to the labor market.

This study aims to evaluate social integration and obstacles for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in local communities for further improvement of governing local communities regarding the integration of IDPs in new surroundings. The expert sample included 38 representatives of relevant authorities, scientists, NGOs, and volunteer organizations from 11 Ukrainian regions. The survey was conducted using the online questionnaire method via Google Forms. The results show the low participation of IDPs in most political and civil activities in new communities. The level of social integration according to these criteria is, respectively, 3.0 and 3.2 points out of 6 possible. At the same time, the level of economic integration (3.7 points) and integration into cultural and sports initiatives (3.6 points) are comparatively high, which are a feature illustrating the readiness to be involved in some kinds of activities in a new community. A significant result is also the fact that according to most signs of social integration, in the evaluations of experts, there are assessments of the activity of IDPs at a level that exceeds the activity of residents (6 points). Such results indicate the existence of a resource for developing communities due to the use of the potential of IDPs. This is especially characteristic of activities in counteraction to russian aggression, involvement in grant and project activities, search for opportunities for legal income, and support of social justice principles in labor relations.

Acknowledgment
This study is funded by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine under project No.2021.01/0343 “Ensuring social protection of ATO/JFO participants and social integration of IDP under the condition of increasing threats to social security.”

The independence of the central bank is one of the most important factors for effective monetary policy. Central bank independence is closely related to monetary stability, which is an important part of monetary policy. In this study, the purpose of the analysis is to understand whether monetary stability functions effectively for central bank independence in Azerbaijan using the vector autoregression method. In addition, the Granger Causality test was conducted to empirically investigate how central bank independence affects the provision of monetary stability in the economy of Azerbaijan over the data period from 1996 to 2022. In this framework, indices or variables are the exchange rate stability index (ERS) in 1996–2022, the level of monetary independence index (MI) in 1996–2020, taken from the “trilemma indexes”, which are defined as the consumer price index (CPI) in 1996–2022, and the broad money supply (M2) in 1996–2022. The findings of the study show that the independence of the central bank has a positive effect on the monetary stability of the Azerbaijani economy.

Considering the loss of talented youth in Ukraine caused by migration, there is a growing need to investigate how to attract and retain students. The study aims to identify the peculiarities of Ukrainian student migration against the background of global patterns of academic migration, focusing on factors of countries’ attractiveness for the students. The typology of countries by the level of inbound and outbound academic migration is developed based on variation analysis. The correlation analysis is used to identify the factors that influence countries’ attractiveness to students. The analysis of educational policies of the most attractive countries for Ukrainian students is fulfilled using the contextual analysis of legislative norms on academic mobility. In the global dimension, the variation of both inbound and outbound academic mobility is closely related to a country’s economic level, measured by GNI per capita. However, the correlation analysis did not confirm the higher migration attractiveness of countries with a high level of economic development (correlation with GNI per capita is –0.147). The impact of employment and social and economic resilience of an economy was relatively significant, with the correlation coefficients of 0.426 and 0.371. The analysis of educational policies of host countries showed the active use of language integration tools, the combined use of financial mechanisms, and the involvement of universities in career development. Implementation of the best practices of educational management in Ukraine is critical for restoring demographic and intellectual capital.

Acknowledgment
This study is funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine under the project “Higher education in the conditions of war and post-war recovery: Determinants of development to overcome threats to the restoring of human capital” (State registration number 0124U000351).

The study analyzes the implementation of responsible production practices in Kazakhstan’s manufacturing sector, an area of growing importance for sustainable development in emerging economies. The aim is to examine how environmental, operational, and social factors influence production processes and community contributions. Data were collected through an online survey conducted between May and August 2024, using a voluntary response sampling method. To enhance the representativeness of the findings, the sectoral distribution of the responding enterprises was analyzed post-collection. The survey captured top, middle, and line management responses to comprehensively assess sustainability practices. Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to evaluate the relationships between ecological operational efficiency, environmental protection, resource efficiency, waste management, social factors, product manufacturing, and community contribution. The findings reveal that environmental protection, efficient resource use, and effective waste management significantly strengthen manufacturing performance and enhance companies’ contributions to community development. In contrast, improvements in ecological operational efficiency and workplace social initiatives do not directly impact production outcomes. The study concludes that integrating sustainable environmental and resource management practices into production processes is crucial for enhancing both manufacturing performance and broader societal outcomes. The findings offer practical implications for industrial managers, policymakers, and stakeholders aiming to promote sustainability transitions in manufacturing sectors.

Acknowledgment
This study was funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No. AP19576593).

Innovations play an important role in achieving competitiveness and long-term economic growth at all levels of the economic hierarchy. More recently, the role of sustainability-oriented innovation in achieving economic growth has become equally important. However, there is a scientific debate about the possibility of effective commercialization of sustainability-oriented innovations. The existence of such scientific debate, as well as the absence of citation-based systematic literature reviews, became a prerequisite for conducting a comparative literature review of research on the effective commercialization of conventional and sustainability-oriented innovations. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comparative review and analysis of research on the commercialization efficiency of conventional and sustainability-oriented innovations. The analysis was conducted on the basis of a citation-based systematic literature review method. The results show that sustainable innovation research is more focused on the relationship between commercialization and firm performance. In the field of conventional innovations, research trends have shifted from studying the impact of technology transfer office (TTO) size, staffing, compensation practices to how strategic factors affect the efficiency of commercialization. In the area of sustainability-oriented innovation, the issues of the strategic orientation impact cause the most sustained interest, while managerial concerns and the stringency of environmental regulations have been actively explored in the past few years. It was revealed that the commercialization efficiency of sustainability-oriented innovations is characterized by so called sustainability-oriented criteria. A distinctive output criterion for commercialization efficiency of sustainability-oriented innovation is the improvement of the firm’s image. In addition, content analysis identified possible research directions to be investigated.

The increasing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in wartime Ukraine leads to growing problems in social protection funding. Under these circumstances, the evaluation of the effectiveness of public finance use is of increasing importance. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of public finance for internally displaced persons’ social protection, adapting the KPI methodology for analysis on the national level. The effectiveness is considered following the OECD approach as the extent to which the intervention achieved its objectives and results. At macrolevel of research, the integral indicator was developed based on indicators of input (financing of social protection programs), output (involvement of IDPs in social programs), activity (funding per recipient and multiplicative effect in GDP growth), mechanism (administrative costs for achieving results), and control (effectiveness of IDPs’ social protection compared to other demographic groups). Thirty indicators in total were used (e.g., budgetary funding allocated for housing assistance; budget expenditures on staff salaries of the authorities responsible for certain programs; coverage rate of unemployed IDPs receiving vocational training). The essential distance from the maximum level of expected results (1.0) allows concluding the low effectiveness in this area of public finance use: from 0.330 in 2020 to 0.668 in 2023. Gaps are evident in each direction, especially in input performance (the highest value did not exceed 0.370). The best results were achieved in housing funding and employment governance. The proposed approach is useful for analyzing gaps and identifying opportunities to improve the management of other social programs.

Type of the article: Research Article

The migration of highly skilled workers and its impact on productivity, competitiveness, and innovative development is becoming an increasingly relevant area of scientific research in the context of rapid digitalization of the economy. In this regard, the article aims to explore the relationship between the migration of highly skilled workers and digital economy development (using the example of EU countries). The study was conducted using correlation analysis and parametric data analysis methods, based on EU countries’ statistics on the migration of highly skilled workers, macroeconomic digitalization indicators, and the adoption of digital technologies at the business level. The results confirm that highly skilled migrants positively affect aggregate indicators of economic digitalization: correlation coefficients with the Global Digitalization Index and the DiGiX Digital Index are 0.735 and 0.692, respectively, and are statistically significant. At the company level, a significant influence of highly skilled migrants on the use of specific digital technologies in EU companies was confirmed. In particular, there is a strong correlation between the “Foreign Highly Skilled Personnel” indicator from the IMD World Talent Ranking 2024 and digital intensity indicators (level of application of key business-related digital technologies), as well as business activity in using big data analytics technologies: the correlation coefficients are 0.770 and 0.689, respectively, and are statistically significant. The proposed approach to analyzing the relationship between highly skilled worker migration and the digital development outcomes of companies and host countries can be used to develop and adjust knowledge and human resource productivity management strategies at both the micro- and macroeconomic levels.

Acknowledgment
This study is funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine under the project “Higher education in the conditions of war and post-war recovery: Determinants of development to overcome threats to the restoration of human capital” (State registration number 0124U000351).

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Forced migration of Ukraine’s population, caused by the war initiated by the russian federation, is a subject of national governance in demographic processes. In a country at war – rapidly losing human potential due to casualties among military and civil populations, as well as forced relocations – the social relations between internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities are of critical importance. The aim of this paper is to assess the perceptions of IDPs in host communities and to identify factors contributing to potential social tension. The research is based on a nationally representative sociological survey conducted in June–July 2024 in Ukraine, involving 514 IDPs and 850 residents of host communities. The findings reveal that social tension is generally low, with most ratings no higher than 3 out of 5. Notably, one-third of host community residents and two-thirds of IDPs did not observe any tension in social interactions at all. IDPs tended to be more optimistic in their evaluations compared to host community members: their perception was significantly lower, with only 7.3% reporting high levels of strain (4-5 out of 5). In contrast, the host population’s evaluations were more critical, particularly among young people and residents of regional centers, who expressed the most negative views. Key factors contributing to tension included negative changes in the housing market (44.8% of host community respondents), increased pressure on healthcare institutions (29.3%), and greater demand for administrative services (26.2%). The results highlighted the need for regular monitoring, which should complement traditional social management practices.

Acknowledgment
Research is supported by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine under the project No.2021.01/0343 “Ensuring social protection of ATO / JFO participants and social integration of IDP under the condition of increasing threats to social security”.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
The growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), combined with challenges in financing social programs during wartime, highlights the importance of ensuring the effectiveness of public spending. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of state programs supporting IDPs in terms of their alignment with the target group’s needs. The assessment was conducted based on data from a nationally representative sociological survey of IDPs. The analysis of the effectiveness of the housing assistance program for IDPs was conducted using elasticity coefficients that consider price growth and changes in the subsistence minimum. According to IDPs’ assessment, most programs funded from the state budget meet current needs and are rated above the average level, above 2.5 points out of 5. Programs of legal and informational support (3.8), cash assistance (4.3), access to medical care without restrictions (i.e., the requirement to sign a declaration) (3.4), provision of social housing (3.3), and tax deductions under rental agreements (3.2) are considered highly relevant. Low relevance was assigned to assistance with relocating businesses (1.7), grant support for starting a business (2.2), housing loans (2.2), and vocational training through referrals from the State Employment Service (2.4). Conclusions were drawn about the need for periodic monitoring of IDP needs and analyzing the effectiveness of funding while considering price changes and the subsidence minimum. This approach could be used to support decisions regarding the attraction of alternative sources of financing for social programs when state budget funding is insufficient to cover basic living needs of IDPs.

Acknowledgment
This study is supported by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine under the project No.2021.01/0343 “Ensuring social protection of ATO / JFO participants and social integration of IDP under the condition of increasing threats to social security”.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Military veterans constitute a distinct social group whose socio-economic integration is becoming increasingly urgent due to the growing number of veterans, which today approaches one million individuals. The aim of this study is to assess the problems related to the socio-economic integration of military veterans and to explore potential solutions, taking into account public perceptions and the population’s readiness to support veterans. In 2024 a sociological survey targeted 516 veterans and 850 members of the general population in Ukraine. Data were processed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 20). The findings indicate that, despite certain societal stereotypes, the relationship between these groups is predominantly positive. The mean population assessment of conflict in relations does not exceed 2.35 points (on a five-point scale), while veterans’ assessments do not exceed 2.75 points. Veterans’ relations with state authorities responsible for social guarantees are less favorable, with evaluations ranging from 2.46 to 3.24 points. The most prevalent form of support for veterans is the willingness to provide financial or material assistance (20.6% and 24.4% of respondents, respectively). There are promising conditions for encouraging support for veteran-led businesses: 7.8% of respondents indicated a preference for purchasing goods from such enterprises. Furthermore, 9.1% of respondents expressed support for the development of economic incentives for companies established by veterans or employing veterans. The results provide a basis for improving state programs for veteran integration, suggesting that traditional support measures may be significantly strengthened by policies aimed at increasing veterans’ active participation in economic life.

Acknowledgments
Supported by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine under project No.2021.01/0343 “Ensuring social protection of ATO / JFO participants and social integration of IDP under the condition of increasing threats to social security”.