Inna Makarenko

Public companies as strategically important and economically powerful Ukrainian companies should be classified as public interest entities in the context of European integration. Based on the research methodology of the Index of public companies’ transparency of the Center for CSR Development and research of largest public and private companies’ transparency in Ukraine, conducted by TI, the authors concluded about critically low level of transparency of public companies in the disclosure of audited financial reporting, as well as non-financial reporting.

This research may contribute to the existing literature in regard to identifying key areas of improving transparency of public companies in Ukraine on the basis of amendments to the existing order of reporting and additional disclosure of non-financial information and carrying out the statutory audit, taking into account European experience.

Among the issues that require further study, the authors should name the relationship between the level of transparency of public companies, their financial efficiency and investment attractiveness. Among the promising areas of research, the extension of the study on transparency of public interest entities after the publication by the European companies of the first statements prepared in accordance with Directive 2014/95/EU is worth noting.

Limitations of the research carried out concerned the size of the sample Ukrainian public companies analyzed.

Independent audit assurance of sustainability reporting is the basis for increasing the credibility of the stakeholders, its transparency and reliability; it is a means of implementing legal liability of the company and the evidence of achievement of its legitimacy to the public. The bases for providing such assurance are the standards of implementation of audit tasks in the sphere of sustainable development. Comparative analysis of international practice as for assurance regarding the SR with local realities, based on the reporting database of Ukrainian GRI companies for the 2005-2014 years, witnessed the initial phase of such practices among Ukrainian companies, and the need to strengthen regulatory efforts to determine the legal status of SR auditing standards in Ukraine, ensuring a legal environment and the development of corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The role of sustainability reporting in investment decision-making is not clear and obvious. Despite the steady increase of such statements in corporate annual reports, the relationship between the sustainability reporting and the financial performance of companies is not always positive. The main problems of sustainability reporting nowadays are insufficient comparability of reporting, accuracy (lack of materiality, reliability and validity of indicators), lack of common approaches for its verification.

Synthesis of standardization and regulation features of sustainability reporting, which is provided in this paper in different dimensions (countries, regulators standards), allows to identify long-term trends of this reporting to ensure its quality during investment decision-making in traditional and responsible financial markets.

Corporate social responsibility, disclosed in sustainability reporting, influences the financial performance of companies. As a result, traditional stock market indices (TI) are expanded with the social responsible stock market indices (SRI). The aim of this study was to establish whether there are any differences in the behavior of the TI and SRI. To do this, the authors analyzed their efficiency. They used R/S analysis to calculate the Hurst exponent as a measure of persistence (long-term memory property). The presence of persistence was evidence in favor of less efficiency. According to empirical results, SRI has lower efficiency, in particular the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Lower efficiency was also observed in the emerging markets with a responsible investment segment, compared to the traditional stock market indices. Further standardization and a common methodological approach to corporate sustainability reporting disclosure are proposed.

Ideology of Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals influence the transformation of business processes in the companies. Professional accountants are important part of this transformation. In this paper the role of accounting in Sustainable Development Goals achievement is discussed. Different approaches to structuring the role of professional accountants in Sustainable Development are investigated. Among them are types of roles that perform accountants, their professional functions, skills and competencies in the corporate environment. As the result a holistic vision of the role of accounting in sustainable development in the new economic conditions is provided.

Public interest entities and public companies as their representatives should be an example in implementing of sustainable development initiatives (sustainable development goals of the United Nations, development strategy «Europe-2020», «Sustainable Development Strategy»Ukraine-2020») in the light of Association agreement. Main challenges for Ukrainian public companies are non-financial information disclosure and assurance of both financial and non-financial reporting through statutory audit. Key prospects of public companies accounting system reform were outlined in this regard. This research may contribute to the existing literature in regard of identifying key areas of improving financial and non-financial information PIEs disclosure as well as its independent verification through statutory audit. This improvement should incorporate European experience and provision of Directive 2014/95 / EU, Directive 2013/34 / EU, Directive 2014/56 / EU and Regulation (EU) no. 537/2014. Among the promising areas of research, introduction of integrated reporting for Ukrainian PIEs is worth noting.

This paper investigates competitiveness in the Ukrainian stock market during local crisis of 2013–2015. The following hypothesis is tested: crisis decreases competitiveness in the stock market. The analysis is carried out for the most liquid stocks in the Ukrainian Exchange (UX) over the period from 2010 to 2017 using both traditional measurements of market concentration (Hirschman Index, Lerner Index, Comprehensive Concentration Index, Entropy Index, Gini coefficient, etc.) and some alternative methods like regression analysis with dummy variables and Kruskal-Wallis test. The results suggest that the current degradation of the Ukrainian stock market is closely related with significant changes in the market concentration which are caused by the local crisis.

This paper explores the frequency of price overreactions in the Ukrainian stock market by focusing on the PFTS Index over the period 2006–2017 and UX index over the period 2008–2017, as well as some “blue chips” (BAVL, UNAF, MSICH, CEEN) for the period of 2013–2015. Using static approach to detect overreactions, a number of hypotheses are tested: the frequency of price overreactions is informative about crisis events in the economy (H1), can be used for price prediction purposes (H2), and exhibits seasonality (H3). To do this, various statistical tests (both parametric and non-parametric), including correlation analysis, augmented Dickey-Fuller tests (ADF), Granger causality tests, and regression analysis with dummy variables, are carried out. Hypotheses H1 and H2 are confirmed: frequency of price overreactions can be used as a crisis predictor (a sharp increase in the number of overreactions is associated with a crisis period) and could be used to predict stock returns. No seasonality in the overreactions frequency is found. Implications of this research include crisis prediction and stock market prices forecasting and can be used for designing trading strategies.

Environmental responsibility mechanism in the public sector of the economy has an important sense in UN Sustainability Development Goals achievement, as well as in ensuring the competitiveness of the state-owned companies and the state as a whole. Sustainability concept, concept of “smart cities and smart communities” and the implementation of public administration reform, the necessity to increase the transparency of state-owned companies and the responsibility of municipalities to communities determine the reasonability and urgency in environmental responsibility mechanism development. Systematization and comparative analysis of world and national experience of environmental responsibility mechanism development in the public sector of the economy were made. The author’s approach to the structuring of the mechanism of environmental responsibility in the public sector was developed. Public policy peculiarities implementation in the field of environmental responsibility were investigated considering the levels of regulation of such liability: in state-owned companies as models for other sectors of the economy; in public authorities and municipalities.

Tracking progress in Sustainable Development Goals (especially Goal 2, Goal 17) substantiates the classification of stakeholders information requests in different sectors of the economy, as well as development of algorithms for selecting the most priority and relevant requests in the context of stakeholder cross-sector partnership. Capital concept and multi-stakeholder approach were recognized as the most appropriate for solving these tasks. This research of existing categories and groups of stakeholders in the real (food production) sector describes the proposed methodology for classifying their information requests and algorithm for their prioritization in relation to a certain type of capital, sustainability dimensions and material topics for stakeholders, SDG, targets, Global Reporting Initiative indicators. The developed methodology is universal both from the point of view of the investigated sectors, the number of alternative stakeholders requests, and the number of experts, as well as from the considerable world experience in prioritizing these requests.

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.

The dissemination of sustainability reporting and integrated reporting is a key trend in the development of accounting systems under the influence of the concept of sustainable development. This statement is fair not only for developed countries, but also for developing countries. On the example of Ghana and Ukraine, a comparative study of regulatory requirements and conceptual frameworks for the compilation of sustainability reporting and integrated reporting has been conducted; the dynamics, size of reporting companies, their sectoral affiliation and the standards used are researched. It was proved that the basis for the promotion sustainability reporting and integrated reporting in these countries are regulatory requirements, as well as increasing the perception of CSR, the transparency and accountability of business, the practices of stakeholder participation and assurance the reliability of reporting for stakeholders.

This paper examines reactions in the Ukrainian stock market to force majeure events, which are divided into four groups: economic force majeure, social force majeure, terrorist acts, natural and technological disasters. More specifically, using daily data for the main Ukrainian stock market index (namely PFTS) over the period from January 1, to December 31, 2018 this study investigates whether or not force majeure events create (temporary) inefficiencies and there exist profitable trading strategies based on exploiting them. For this purpose, cumulative abnormal returns and trading simulation approaches are used in addition to Student’s t-tests. The results suggest that the Ukrainian stock market absorbs new information rather fast. Negative returns in most cases are observed only on the day of the event. The only exception is technological disasters, the market needing up to ten days to react fully in this case. Despite the presence of a detectable pattern in price behavior after force majeure events (namely, a price decrease on the day of the event) no profitable trading strategies based on it are found as their outcomes do not differ from those generated by random trading.

This paper is devoted to the investigation of environmental, social and governance investment (investment with ESG criterion) normative base in the context of standardization process in sustainable economy financing. Complexity of such standardization and the lack of commonly accepted regulations, indexes metrics are under discussions of scholars, which encourage the need for clear guidance in ESG investment. 651 sustainability rating products and more than 300 investment policy instruments in different countries show the need for classifying the ESG standards. The solution of this scientific and practical task is based on the developed ESG investment standards system classifications. Proposed classification incorporates such criteria as level of standards adoption, mandatory degree, sectorial specificity, degree of companies’ awareness of responsible activity, ensuring transparency and the benchmarks formation, creating the institutional support of the ESG investment standardization process in sustainable economy and making more grounded investment and regulatory decisions.

Development of an effective logistics infrastructure for companies contributes to ensuring their effective work, directly affects financial performance and requires the establishment of a management and accounting system for logistics costs. Classifying and registering logistics costs becomes more important in this regard. At this stage of Ukrainian accounting practice, there are challenges for logistics costs accounting such as their identification and registration. Methodological basis of study among different logistics concepts (concept of general logistics costs, concept of reengineering business processes in logistics, concept of an integrated logistics strategy, concept of supply chain management) was total logistics costs concept or the concept of full value as well as process-oriented approach. In the work, the generalization and formalization of existing approaches to the logistics costs accounting was made. Feasibility of using a process-oriented approach among other approaches (absorption costing, direct costing target costing, kaizen costing, etc.) were substantiated. The algorithm of identification and registration of logistics costs for Ukrainian enterprises was proposed. It is based on such inclusion in the relevant economic process (supply, production, sales and administration of logistics processes) and the use of a new consolidated account 29 “Logistics costs”. This authors’ approach to solving the problem of identification and registration of logistics costs for accounting purposes allows to optimize and increase the informativeness of accounting logistics costs reflection in Ukrainian accounting practice.

This paper analyzes price gaps in the Ukrainian stock market for the case of UX index over the period 2009–2018. Using different statistical tests (Student’s t-tests, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney test) and regression analysis with dummy variables, as well as modified cumulative approach and trading simulation, the authors test a number of hypotheses searching for price patterns and abnormal market behavior related to price gaps: there is seasonality in price gaps (H1); price gaps generate statistical anomalies in the Ukrainian stock market (H2); upward gaps generate price patterns in the Ukrainian stock market (H3) and downward gaps generate price patterns in the Ukrainian stock market (H4). Overall results are consistent with the Efficient Market Hypothesis: there is no seasonality in price gaps and in most cases there is no evidences of price patterns or abnormal price behavior after the gaps in the Ukrainian stock market. Nevertheless, the authors find very strong and convincing evidences in favor of momentum effect on the days of negative gaps. These observations are confirmed by trading simulations: trading strategy based on detected price pattern generates profits and demonstrates overall efficiency, which is against the market efficiency. These results can be interesting both for academicians (further evidences against market efficiency) and practitioners (real and effective trading strategy to generate profits in the Ukrainian market market).

The variability of companies stakeholders’ engagement forms, communication channels, approaches to disclosure of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) and strategies for CSR achievement cause the formation of benchmarks – patterns of responsible behavior of these companies. Determination of companies’ CSR patterns plays is a ground of (plays a role or is a ground of) improving their strategies for responsible activities. These patterns were highlighted on the basis of comprehensive three-component indicator that illustrates the combination of parameters: models of companies’ communication with stakeholders, approaches to the disclosure of information on CSR and strategies for incorporating CSR and Sustainable Development Goals. Positioning of 22 Ukrainian companies for the period 2005–2017 was made. Results of positioning allowed to determine such clusters of the companies in accordance with the pattern of responsible behavior as А – innovators, B – leaders, C – pursuer, D – followers, E – starters, F – outsiders; to develop the measures on the improvement of their CSR activity.

This paper is devoted to the investigation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure regulation process and its possible connection with countries’ competitiveness as an integral part of countries’ Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSER) poliсy. ESG disclosure regulation criteria were examined according to their classification on Pension Fund Regulation, Stewardship Code, Government Corporate ESG disclosure, and Non-Government Corporate ESG disclosure by UNPRI in 2016 and for developed countries and developing and emerging countries separately. In order to find the relationship between ESG disclosure and the countries’ competitiveness (describing by Global Competitiveness Index), variety of statistical tests was applied (Student’s t-tests, ANOVA analysis, Mann-Whitney tests, simple average analysis and regression analysis with dummy variables). Research hypotheses about statistically significant differences in ESG disclosure regulation between developed countries and developing and emerging countries and the influence of ESG disclosure regulation on the overall competitiveness of the country were proved. ESG disclosure regulation became an effective instrument of countries CSER policy and tools for increasing their competitiveness.

This paper is devoted to the comparing stock portfolios of the largest conventional and responsible Ukrainian companies as the basis for substantiating the structure of an optimal investment portfolio in the current conditions of development of the financial market of Ukraine. The empirical basis of the research was the data of quotations of shares of 6 most liquid conventional and 6 responsible companies in the Ukrainian and Warsaw exchanges. The methodological basis of calculations was the classic Markowitz portfolio optimization model. The key hypothesis of the research was to check that the conventional investment portfolios of Ukrainian companies outperform the responsible investment portfolios by their parameters (return, risk). This hypothesis was rejected. The obtained results have not only theoretical significance – both the rationale for the threat of responsible investment in Ukraine and the applied value for market participants in terms of investment decisions making, taking into consideration the ESG criteria, and the formation of investment portfolios from shares of the responsible companies, the key parameters of which exceed the conventional portfolios.

This paper explores some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – 2 and 12) in agriculture for the Czech Republic and Ukraine. The idea is to find out best practices in implementing SDGs 2 and 12 within the responsible investment framework. For these purposes, benchmarking (comparative analysis) is used. Using data over the period of 2017–2020, a general comparative review of global and national targets of SDGs 2 and 12 in Ukraine and the Czech Republic is provided. The results justify the merely incorporation and compliance of these targets at the national and global levels. The identified problems in achieving SDG 2 and SDG 12 are common for Ukraine and the Czech Republic and relate to unequal access to investment and financial resources. Recommendations and solutions to the most important problems based on the responsible investment instruments are proposed in this paper. The research findings can be useful for regulators (both in agriculture and in the financial market), companies and a wide group of other stakeholders in promoting responsible investment to make more comprehensive progress towards SDG 2 and 12 in Czech Republic and Ukraine by 2030.

Acknowledgment
Authors are grateful to the Czech government for the support provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, which allowed this scientific cooperation to start within the project “AgriSciences Platform for Scientific Enhancement of HEIs in Ukraine”.

This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the SDG in healthcare achievement in Austria and Ukraine and to determine possible lessons for Ukraine based on best EU and world experiences. To identify existing challenges and perspectives a comparative analysis of key indicators of healthcare expenditures and health financing systems in Austria and Ukraine was carried out. Results indicate that in Ukraine there is a substantial lack of public funding for healthcare (only 682 US dollars per capita in 2018), a poor share of voluntary health insurance (less than 1%), significant amounts (on average 50%) of expenditures of the population in general spending on health. On the contrary, in Austria, there is sufficient public funding for healthcare (5,879 US dollars per capita in 2018), more than 5% share of voluntary health insurance, moderate amounts (on average 25%) of expenditures of the population in general spending on health. Austria’s experience as an EU-member country with a successful example of a financing strategy for the healthcare system is a sound example for Ukraine. The alternative financing tools (e.g. result-based financing, impact investment, public-private partnership) can be used as an additional financing mechanism of healthcare funding in Ukraine. The use of these instruments along with the improvement of the fiscal policy, social security, and governance based on Austrian experience can cut the existing financing gap to achieve SDG targets in healthcare in Ukraine.

Acknowledgment
This study is financed equally by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

2020 revealed the vulnerability of the healthcare systems in most countries. It also highlighted their failure to generate serious progress in the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3): Ensure healthy lives and promote welfare for all at all ages. One of the key problems inhibiting its progress is the lack of financial resources. Based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of the literature related to SDG 3 and its investment, it aims to demonstrate that lack of appropriate academic support is a part of the failure to generate serious progress in the fulfillment of SDG 3. To do this academic literature published in the period 2010–2019 is analyzed. SciVal Elsevier, VosViewer, and Google Trends tools are applied for analysis. The results show that there is a significant interest in the academic circles on SDG 3 alone. However, this interest is concentrated toward its medical aspects while economic aspects, including investment, are poorly represented. This study shows that the reason for the current investment gap in SDG 3 is the lack of academic support to provide a theoretical, methodological, and analytical framework for tackling the financing problem for SDG 3.

Almost all human activity spheres, from the health care system to the education system, were unprepared for the pandemic. This, in turn, has slowed down the progress in achieving sustainable development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals 4 “Quality Education” and 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” were particularly vulnerable. In addition, the widespread concern was caused in the context of the transition to a “knowledge-based economy”. This paper analyzes the readiness of the scientific community to provide preconditions for the acceleration of these SDGs achievements. To do this, a meta-analysis of the academic literature on SDG 4, SDG 8, and the knowledge-based economy during 2015–2021 was conducted. Several special methods and instruments were used, including Scopus, WoS, VosViewer, Publish or Perish, Google Trends, and Google Books Ngram Viewer. The results show the inability of the modern academic community to provide a theoretical and empirical framework for a successful transition to a knowledge-based economy, taking into account the need to achieve sustainability. This is partly due to the relative subject novelty and the lack of academic attention. The challenges posed by the pandemic (lockdowns, unemployment, closing of educational institutions, financial flows reorientation, etc.) together with potential threats (new pandemic, climate change, population displacement, armed conflicts, etc.) necessitate a radical intensification of academic activity in economics to achieve SDGs.

This paper explores the influence of traditional and ESG stock market indices on a country’s net international investment position. To do this, different methods, including ANOVA analysis, multiply regression analysis, correlation analysis, VAR-analysis and R/S-analysis, as well as the Granger causality test, are applied to quarterly data on the net international investment position, traditional and ESG indices from Finland, Sweden, France, Spain and Ukraine over the period 2005–2021. The results of descriptive statistics show that ESG indices are more volatile than traditional, but these differences are statistically insignificant according to ANOVA analysis. Correlation analysis provides direct evidence that ESG indices are highly correlated with their traditional analogues (correlation level varies from 0.88 to 0.96). Regression analysis results show that traditional and ESG stock market indices have no significant impact on the net international investment position. ESG stock market indices and net international investment position data are persistent, and autoregressive models can be applied to these data sets. On average, Hurst exponent is above 0.75 for the case of ESG indices and above 0.85 for the net investment position. This paper provides recommendations to improve the responsible investment framework.

Acknowledgment
Alex Plastun gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0121U100473).

This paper examines the relationship between traditional and ESG stock market indices and the net international investment position for the case of Austria and Ukraine. For these purposes, the following methods are used: variance analysis, ANOVA analysis, correlation analysis, VAR analysis, R/S analysis, and Granger causality test. According to the results, ESG indices are less volatile than conventional ones. Based on the correlation analysis, it is concluded that there is a significant direct connection between ESG indices and their traditional counterparts (0.98 for Austria and 0.68 for Ukraine). A substantial level of persistence in Austria’s investment position indicates the possibility of using autoregression models for forecasting. The results of the net investment position modelling for the case of Austria showed a statistically significant impact of stock market indices on the net investment position. But for the case of Ukraine, this impact is insignificant. This is indirect evidence in favor of poor performance of the Ukrainian stock market. Further development of Ukrainian stock market is required, because Austrian experience showed that stock market can be used as a transmission mechanism in boosting investment position both within conventional approach and ESG.

Acknowledgment
Alex Plastun, Mario Situm, Inna Makarenko, and Yulia Serpeninova gratefully acknowledge support from Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0122U002659).

Sovereign wealth funds accumulate the largest resources to bridge the financial gap under the Sustainable Development Goals. The basic mechanism for accelerating sustainability progress is the effort of sovereign wealth funds to incorporate environmental, social, governance and ethical criteria and targets of these Goals disclosed in their sustainability reports. This study aims to develop a methodology for assessing the Sustainability Transparency Index in a sample of sovereign wealth funds, as well as to investigate how this transparency is influenced by the size of funds’ assets and sustainability progress with a cross-regional comparison. Five groups of sustainability disclosure metrics, such as the main pillars of novel Sustainability Transparency Index, were tested and analyzed for 91 funds using binary variables and normalization method. Three hypotheses regarding the statistical association of funds’ sustainability transparency index with the size of the funds’ assets, countries’ sustainability progress, and the region of a fund were checked for 87 funds using multiple regression. The overall results of the Sustainability Transparency Index show an insufficient level of funds’ transparency. Sustainability disclosure in 57% of funds surveyed should be fully enhanced in terms of greater sustainability transparency. There is strong evidence of the correlation between the volume of funds’ assets and sustainability transparency as well as the leadership of European funds in a cross-regional comparative study. However, data on the progress of the country’s sustainability and the funds’ Sustainability Transparency Index are limited and can be used as evidence of the insufficient role of fund transparency in promoting sustainability.

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.

This paper explores the influence of the ESG disclosure regulation (government corporate ESG disclosure and non-government corporate ESG disclosure) on the ranking in 50 largest economies. Applying various statistical methods and techniques, including both parametrical (Student’s t-test, ANOVA analysis) and non-parametrical (Mann-Whitney U test) tests, simple average analysis, OLS with dummy variables method and multiple linear regression analysis, as well as correlation analysis and Granger causality test, several hypotheses are tested. The hypotheses stipulate whether or not ESG disclosure regulation differs in developed and emerging countries and whether or not ESG disclosure regulation influences the country’s SDGI ranking, as well as the ranking of the country among 50 largest economies. According to the results, the differences in ESG disclosure regulation are statistically significant in developed and emerging countries. The level of ESG disclosure compliance is higher in developed countries. ESG disclosure regulation influences the position of the country in SDGI and 50 largest economies rankings. The more country complies with ESG disclosure criteria, the better position in rankings is. Incorporation of ESG criteria is an important evolutionary step in economic development of the country. It allows increasing position of the country in 50 largest economies and SDGI ranking. Thus, ESG disclosure regulation is vital for the development of the country in the modern world.

Acknowledgment
Comments from the Editor and anonymous referees have been gratefully acknowledged. Alex Plastun gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0117U003936). Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0117U003933).

Management report is a new form of sustainability reporting (SR) in Ukraine, and its assessment for quality of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria disclosure and compliance among banks plays a crucial role for auditors in the verification process. The Quality and Compliance Bank Management Reports (Q&C BMR) Index methodology was developed for this purpose. The methodology includes a range of formal, content, assurance and disclosure scorings. According to the results of a continuous assessment of these management reports of 75 state, private and foreign-owned banks in Ukraine for the 2018 fiscal year, the average Q&C BMR Index is 61.2%. This indicates a fairly high level of quality and compliance with regulatory requirements for disclosure by banks of Ukraine in their SR. Differentiation of the studied population of banks in terms of Q&C BMR Index allowed distinguishing the following rating groups: А – leaders, B – pursuers, C – starters, and D – outsiders. There is a clear trend in the relationship between the ownership of a bank and its Q&C BMR index. Despite the rather high average value of the index, there is an opportunity to improve Ukrainian banks’ SR in the context of its further standardization and disclosure of the full set of ESGs – a criterion for all rating groups (especially C and D). Q&C BMR Index can be used as a benchmark by banks, regulators and auditors when comparing the level of disclosure by banks and their transparency.

Acknowledgment
The comments of an editor and anonymous referees have been gratefully acknowledged. Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine – Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility for Sustainable Development: Partnership of Stakeholders in the Real, Financial and Public Sectors of the Economy (0117U003933).

The research is devoted to the analysis of the European and Ukrainian experience of banks’ management report audit assurance, the disclosure of the national features of such assurance using the case study of 75 state-owned banks, banks with private and foreign capital in Ukraine, and the specific features of audit verification of this report in the current crisis conditions. It was discovered that the requirements of national regulatory documents and guidelines for preparing a management report for banking institutions generally comply with the European approaches, particularly with Directive 2014/95/EU, Directive 2013/34/EU, and Directive 2014/56/EU (Legislation of EU, 2013, 2014). However, specific national requirements for the content of the report and the procedure for its audit are duplicated, intersect, and create inaccuracies in the disclosure of non-financial information by banks. Besides, the requirements for the reflection of the information on the management report in the independent auditors’ report of the studied banks of Ukraine are partially met. The common challenges for accounting and audit support for the management report for Ukrainian and European banks are disclosed in terms of the current crisis caused by global health risks and their economic consequences for banks.