Digital social protection in Ukraine: prerequisites and strategic challenges

Devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world enhance the societal requests for effective healthcare and social protection systems, modern education, and high-quality infrastructure. In Ukraine, education, healthcare, and social services have been chronically deteriorating, and the corona-crisis has further exacerbated their state and increased poverty in the country. The aim of this study is to reveal the main weaknesses of fiscal policy in Ukraine and to outline the prospects of public finance transformations under the impact of the COVID-19. To achieve this aim, the indicators of fiscal policy response to the pandemic in Ukraine are calculated and a comparative analysis of Ukraine’s public finance structure with the international patterns is undertaken. A moderate fiscal impulse and insufficient fiscal rescue package in Ukraine are shown. Moreover, the inconsistencies of anti-crisis fiscal policy instruments with the international best practice are revealed. Summarizing the available theoretical sources and recent applied research allows identifying the prospects of public finances transformations under the impact of the COVID-19 in a global context. Along with the obtained results of Ukraine’s fiscal sector analysis, these form the basis for shaping the fiscal policy response in Ukraine over the medium term. Proposals for public financing of Ukraine’s health care and educational sectors, of the social safety nets and infrastructures under the impact of the pandemic are developed. Offsetting measures from the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget are drawn up for closing the arising fiscal gaps.

Economic growth is exposed to many socio-economic factors that impact both the formation and allocation of resources. The theoretical part of this article discusses studies by various authors on the social expenditure impact on economic growth, the dependence of this influence on selected funding principles and social policy models. In the empirical part, using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) procedure and the Fixed Effect Model, the impact of social expenditure on the economic growth in OECD countries is determined. An increased focus is put on assessing the long-term impact of the main types of social expenditures (public and private), based on different financing principles (distribution and accumulation), on the economic growth rates both in OECD in general and in the context of countries (based on the Esping-Andersen’s typology) grouped according to social policy models. The following conclusions are drawn: 1) an increase in the share of total social expenditures in the country’s GDP negatively affects economic growth; 2) an increase in the share of private social expenditures in the country’s GDP contributes to economic growth; 3) the obtained indicators of impact assessment are different depending on a social policy model chosen. The analysis is based on OECD panel data for the period 1980–2013.

The purpose of this study is to ground the causality, its character, and power between economic growth and housing spending within government social protection to strengthen poverty reduction. The study is conducted on a sample of 27 EU countries for 2012–2021 according to the following indicators: government expenditure on housing within social protection, government expenditure on housing development, and GDP per capita growth. Correlation analysis revealed the relationship between the variables. The paper employed time lags with the most significance based on Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients depending on normal data (Shapiro-Wilk test). The causal analysis determined which of the studied indicators is the cause and consequence of established dependence based on the results of the Granger test. Calculations are made in STATA software. It is confirmed that government expenditure on housing within social protection influences GDP per capita growth in 14 countries (the highest impact is in Greece and Spain) and government expenditure on housing development – in 17 countries (the biggest influence is in Romania, the Slovak Republic, Ireland, and Lithuania). It is also emphasized that government expenditure on housing development influences economic growth more significantly and with higher strength than government expenditure on housing within social protection. The obtained results can be useful in further research and government decision-making in social and economic policy, particularly regarding the expediency of increasing government spending for affordable housing and its development according to social protection programs, poverty reduction, and inclusive economic growth.

Acknowledgments
The study is funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (No. 0122U000781) and the Vega Agency (No. 1/0638/23).