Higher Level Of Social Welfare Research Articles

Fiscal transfer under tax and infrastructure competition

ABSTRACT Interjurisdictional fiscal transfer is generally divided into special transfer payments and general transfer payments. We analyse the welfare implications of these two types of transfer within the framework of tax and infrastructure competition for capital among jurisdictions. The results show that when the decline rate of marginal productivity of capital is low, special transfer payments generate a higher level of social welfare than the general transfer regime if the fiscal transfer is sufficiently large. However, when the decline rate of marginal productivity is high, general transfer payments always dominate the special transfer regime in terms of welfare.

The mental health of the Ukrainian nation as a driving force for economic growth

Introduction: Achieving a high level of social welfare requires investment in human capital, and its sufficiency and rational use is a necessary condition for the development of the state. The health of the nation as a factor of state formation and security of the state is a basic component of human capital and competitiveness of the country and is closely integrated with the economy, science, and defense.
 Purpose: The purpose of our study is the system of protection and preservation of the mental health of Ukrainians, in the framework and context of economic development.
 Methodology: The study was conducted based on statistical data of the Center for Medical Statistics of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine for the period 2016–2020. The following methods were used: analytical, medical statistics, comparative analysis, system approach.
 Results: The incidence and prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders among the entire population of Ukraine, as well as among the adult population, working-age and old age, depending on the place of residence and sex, were studied and analyzed.
 Conclusions: The problems of the current state of mental health of Ukrainians are studied and the ways of solving these problems are suggested. The retrospective dynamics of the dependence of the level of psychological health of the population and economic development of the country are analyzed. The tendencies of prevention and improvement of the level of public awareness about the role of mental health on the example of the leading countries of the world are analyzed

Population trends in BRICS: Developments and projections

The purpose of the article is to analyze population trends in the BRICS countries in the period from 2000 to 2019 based on local realities and socio-economic indexes, as well as to study projections up to 2050. The article also explores initiatives of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the field of demographic research relevant to BRICS, such as fertility, birth, and mortality rates. Thus, it is possible to determine the main characteristics of the population of the BRICS countries, their challenges and objectives, which allow us to predict with an eye to 2050 and the dynamics of the evolution of each member of the international cooperation grouping. Overall, it is argued that urbanization processes were one of the key factors driving population trends in the BRICS countries, especially those related to lower fertility rates. Finally, the current situation of BRICS in the international scenario is evaluated, given the explored attributes, with an emphasis on the importance of public policies favorable for the full development of the potential of the BRICS population. Therefore, member states’ initiatives to promote higher levels of social welfare are investigated, as well as their benefits to local peoples, who together account for more than 40% of the world’s total population.

MECHANISMS FOR ENSURING THE COMPETITIVENESS OF BUSINESS STRUCTURES IN THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Neither the development of the world economy nor the availability of raw materials can guarantee the stability of economic development and a high level of social welfare. Now Kazakhstan faces the task of accelerated development of national economy sectors that give a multiplicative effect (the share of agricultural products in the country's GDP should grow 5 times by 2050), including the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan has a great potential to become a new driver of economic development. Therefore, the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan needs sustainable development of export-oriented agricultural production that is competitive on the world market. Despite the solution of many theoretical and applied problems reflected in the works of these authors, a General approach to the classification of organizational reserves for improving the efficiency of production of scientific-intensive products is not currently formed, and the issues of forming a mezzanine for identifying and using, and evaluating the level of production efficiency require further improvement. The purpose of the research is to develop theoretical, scientific, methodological and practical provisions for the formation of a production management system of innovative potential based on improving the competitiveness of the agricultural industry, aimed at ensuring food security in Kazakhstan. The article shows that the innovative type of economic development requires the development of a competitive innovative potential product, the implementation of the principles of continuous improvement, the search and use of the organization of production for its effective production. The necessity of forming mechanisms for identifying and using organizational reserves to increase the efficiency of production of innovative potential products is also determined. This opened up the possibility of creating and developing conditions conducive to the mobilization of domestic reserves.

Обеспечение равенства в образовании: анализ опыта Дании, Норвегии, Финляндии и Швеции

This paper is focused on mitigating the challenge of inequality in educational systems of the four Nordic states: Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Alt-hough many other countries invest significantly in education, the Nordic states accommodate lower level of child poverty and smaller scales of such negative social processes as criminality, child preg-nancies, substance abuse, etc. The author summar-ies modern research findings revealing that equal societies with the smallest property gap between the richest and the poorest are safe, healthy, and there-fore competitive. The experience of the Nordic states suggests inter alia that competition between pupils, as a manifestation of inequality, does not benefit anyone. From inequalities, the society suffers as a whole. It can thus be approximated equality in the Nordic states which explains their leading position in international education rankings and the overall high level of social welfare.

Reguły polityki pieniężnej i makroostrożnościowej w modelu z ograniczeniami zastawowymi

We compare the welfare and macroeconomic effects of monetary policy and macroprudential policy, in particular one targeting the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with collateral constraints and two types of agents. In this set-up, we study seven potential policy rules responding to credit growth and fluctuations in the prices of collateral. We show that monetary policy responding to deviations in collateral prices from their steady-state value results in the highest level of social welfare. It is also useful in stabilising output and inflation. A macroprudential policy using the LTV ratio as the instrument is dominated in terms of output and inflation stability by interest rate rules. If interest rate rules are not available, the LTV ratio can be used to improve welfare, but the gains are small.

Intellectual property right infringement, state involvement in industrial espionage, and North-South trade

Abstracts Despite the recent trade war triggered largely by Chinese firms’ intellectual property infringement, the literature on the role of state-sponsored industrial espionage in the trade war is limited. To explore this, we construct an endogenous choice game where a South government chooses whether to support a domestic firm’s industrial espionage while a North government chooses whether to retaliate with a tariff. The main finding shows that cooperation between countries (no infringement/no tariff) leads to a higher level of social welfare than under a trade war. In addition, cooperation is more stable when the South government has a stronger tendency to support its domestic firm’s intellectual property infringement. However, the cooperation becomes less stable as the technology gap between the countries narrows. Our findings help predict that the ongoing trade war between the United States and China will continue if China narrows the technology gap.

Торговая политика Республики Корея как инструмент реализации национальных экономических интересов страны

Membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) are important instruments for governments to realize national economic interests. The Republic of Korea has been particularly successful in doing so. As the experience of Korea shows, a trade policy mix between multilateral liberalization under the WTO and preferential liberalization through FTAs allows the government to optimally balance national interests and strive for higher levels of social welfare and economic effectiveness, while simultaneously protecting national industries. However, such results seem to be possible only if national economic interests are clearly defined and are synchronized with a country’s goals regarding WTO membership and its strategy for FTAs. During recent decades, Korea has practiced an active long-term planning of trade policy so that trade benefits are not excessively concentrated in a narrow range of trade actors and are distributed more evenly in society. This meant appropriate balancing of liberalization and protection measures, reinforced by special support programmes that neutralized the negative impact of higher market openness. In this article, Korea’s strategy regarding trade policy is analyzed, including the reasons Korea pursued an FTA-centric policy and the benefits it obtained in addition to those it obtained from WTO membership.

THE USING OF GIS TOOLS IN THE STUDY SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF THE REGIONS OF SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST

This paper presents the results of a comparative spatial analysis of socio-ecological and economic well-being for the Russian regions of the Far East and Siberia. We use a multiplicative model, based on the A. Sen extended function. It include GRP per capita, share of personal incomes in GRP, cost of living index in the region, intra-regional income inequality and the integrated environmental index (it is defined as the arithmetic mean of the environmental indices calculated on the basis of the indicators: share of the negative water, air and soil tests). Calculations revealed that a high level of social welfare obtained on the basis of the four-component multiplicative model (i.e. without taking into account the environmental factor) is observed in the Chukotka Autonomous Area, Magadan and Sakhalin Regions. The inclusion of the environmental component in the comprehensive assessment of the regional development had a significant impact on the level of social well-being. In most of analyzed regions, the ecologically adjusted characteristic was significantly lower than the indicator obtained on the basis of the four-component multiplicative model. The most significant difference is observed in the Primorye Territory (51 %), Jewish Autonomous Region and Omsk Region (25 %), which is significantly higher than the average level for the Russian Federation – 16 %. The analysis results can be used in the development of management decisions in environmental and economic interactions, as well as in the preparation of strategic planning documents

Social Welfare and Eco-economic Dynamics: An Analytical Model

A model created for estimating the welfare level potentially achievable under the existing production constraints is considered in the article. Analysis of the results obtained by using the model has demonstrated that (1) Russian society is far from a state of a socio-eco-economic balance; (2) increasing the level of social welfare would require significantly increasing Russian citizens’ incomes and reducing the amount of soil, air, and water pollution; (3) at current income and pollution levels, it is possible to achieve a higher level of social welfare in Russian society. The results of the study provide strong evidence that further progressive development of our country needs to be driven by increasing the welfare of the majority of the population and implementing green technologies into economic practice on a large scale.

Структурные альтернативы организации прокачки газа по изолированному трубопроводу

Regulation of natural monopolies implies strict adherence to the legislation that does not take into account the variety of circumstances of activities and the possible transactions organization options. The litigation between the Rosneft and Energy companies about the access to the gas pipeline, which connects the gas field in the North of the Sakhalin Island with the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the Southern part of the Island, is analyzed. It is shown that consideration of a broader range of institutional alternatives of the gas transportation organization through an insulated pipeline is necessary. The basis of the regulator decisions is the existence of market for gas transportation services, which in fact is not (and should not be) the default option. An approach to such situations analysis is proposed, it allows covering a wide range of institutional alternatives that could provide a higher level of social welfare. The Grossman-Hart model of incomplete contracts and its verification on real data is used for the demonstration that a simple decision to allow an isolated pipeline access, when the participants of the transaction are independent, can lead to a decrease of the public welfare, compared with alternatives involving integration.

Penalizing Lies and Optimal Monitoring

It has been established that monitoring schemes that allow self-reports of behavior can achieve superior results when the scheme induces truthful reporting (Kaplow and Shavell 1994). Often in reality, however, monitoring schemes do not enjoy the flexibility necessary to achieve truthful reports. In this paper we show how and why allowing self-reports can nevertheless improve on the monitor’s problem by way of penalizing lies when detected. Results show that, for any monitoring probability and sanction function, we can achieve actions closer to the first- best solution as well as higher levels of social welfare.

ЕФЕКТИВНІСТЬ ФІНАНСОВОГО КОНТРОЛЮ ТА ДЕРЖАВНОГО АУДИТУ ДЛЯ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ФІНАНСОВО-ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ СТІЙКОСТІ ДЕРЖАВИ

Одним із ключових завдань управління є контроль за використанням фінансових і матеріальних ресурсів. Особливе значення фінансовий контроль має у державному секторі, адже дотримання чітких стандартів у бюджетній сфері сприяє досягненню соціальної стабільності, економічної безпеки та високого рівня добробуту населення. Від ефективності фінансового контролю значною мірою залежить довіра суспільства до влади та державних інституцій, що обумовлює актуальність дослідження питань ролі фінансового контролю у забезпеченні економічної стійкості держави. У статті авторами проведене дослідження економічної сутності державного фінансового контролю та ролі державного аудиту у фінансово-економічному секторі держави, визначено напрями розвитку державного фінансового аудиту. На сучасному етапі в Україні не запроваджено єдиних методологічних основ побудови ефективної системи аудиту в секторі державного управління, що вимагає розробки теоретико-прикладних пропозицій щодо формування аудиту в державному секторі. Пропонований авторами підхід до класифікації державного аудиту передбачає виділення внутрішнього та зовнішнього аудиту, а також трьох основних різновидів державного аудиту - фінансового аудиту, аудиту ефективності та операційного аудиту. Така класифікація може застосовуватись у діяльності органів зовнішнього та внутрішнього державного фінансового контролю. При цьому об’єктами фінансового аудиту мають бути суб’єкти господарювання, бюджетні установи та суб’єкти державної та комунальної форми власності, аудит ефективності має бути скерований на оцінку виконання місцевих бюджетів та програм розвитку, операційний аудит орієнтований на перевірку окремих господарських операцій. Авторами розроблено методичний підхід до загальної оцінки ефективності державного фінансового контролю та аудиту, що передбачає застосування відповідних коефіцієнтів ефективності контролю та ефективності державного аудиту.

Anticipating the location of a waste collection point: an application based on Portugal

We study the optimal location of a waste facility in a horizontally differentiated duopoly where firms choose their location and price. The policymaker decides the location of a waste facility targeting social welfare maximization. Consistent with the observation of the location decisions of waste facilities in Portugal, we show that the optimal location of a waste facility is never in the city center under partial ex-post regulation. Ex-ante regulation ensures the highest level of social welfare, but from a theoretical point of view, it requires a waste facility located in the city center. A robustness check is then provided to justify that, in actual regulatory practice, a first-mover regulator maximizes social welfare without necessarily imposing the installation of a waste facility in the city center.

ECONOMIC BACKGROUND AND FEATURES OF CREATING OPTIMAL FISCAL SPACE OF UKRAINE

Creation of an optimal fiscal space in Ukraine should become the priority task of the modern fiscal policy of the state. Perfect combination of fiscal space components can help to reach the positive results of the national economic development. Modern state of the domestic economy is characterized by fiscal asymmetric, amount of national debt, changes in GDP and its structure. The national fiscal space reformatting should be carried out substantially. There are some factors in national fiscal space, which slow down the processes of social improvement and have negative impact on the quality of a citizen’s life. These factors are formed under the influence of political, social and legal trends, as well as financial imbalances. Theoretical and practical issues of fiscal space formation and development along with the experience of the functioning and national economy evolution have been learned by such researchers as V. Heyets, Т. Iefiminko, G. Kołodko, N. Кravchuk, A. Krysovatyy, P. Kulawczuk, S. Owsiak, E. Reinert, P. Heller, J. Schumpeter, S. Yuriy. However, the challenges of modern social development confirm the importance of their thorough study. Purpose. The article aims to research the economic preconditions and features of creating the optimal fiscal space in Ukraine, which can meet the modern needs and contribute to the achievement of a high level of social welfare. In order to reach the goal of the research the following methods have been used: methods of classification, method of formalization and method of systematization. These methods have become the basis for construction the theoretical component of the functioning of the optimal fiscal space of the state and determined the interaction of its constituents. The preconditions of fiscal space forming in Ukraine have been rated. The prospects for creating its structure have been determined with the help of methods of comparative analysis. It should be noted the importance of learning fiscal space structure which is accompanied by a problem of determining the economic gist and the nature of the investigated phenomenon. Provision of the efficient mechanism of formation and effective functioning of fiscal space should be based on a thorough solution of disadvantages of divergent economic development of Ukraine and a search for ways to improve it.

Should We Enhance or Restrict Technological Diffusion from Major to Minor Firms?

This study examines how technological diffusion from a major firm to a minor firm affects social welfare via R & D competition in an asymmetric Cournot duopoly. We assume that the minor firm can decrease its production cost because of the spillover effect arising through R & D by the major firm. R & D by the minor firm depends on the free-riding effect and a taking-away effect that removes market share from the major firm. If given a low R & D cost, both firms invest in R & D with an appropriate level of technological diffusion, we can obtain a high level of social welfare. However, an increase in the level of technological diffusion could make the major firm abandon R & D activity. Given a high R & D cost, a high level of welfare can be obtained only with a low level of technological diffusion because the potential presence of technological diffusion easily disrupts R & D by the major firm.

Understanding the dynamics of clean technology: implications for policy and industry

Using an optimal control approach, I examine the effectiveness of various strategies for firms to investing in clean technology when faced with an emissions tax in a duopolistic market. Explicitly allowing for the cumulative nature of R&D, I show that emissions per unit of output are lowest when the firms cooperate in R&D, as compared to the scenarios when they compete in R&D or merge into a single entity. It is shown that R&D cooperation leads to the highest level of social welfare among the three alternative scenarios, and that a profit maximizing firm will never choose the most environmentally conscience investment strategy. In contrast to the traditional static analysis, which ignores the temporal effects associated with R&D, my dynamic analysis has implications for emission tax policy and environmental innovation to improve overall welfare.

To Elect or Not to Elect: Leaders, Alternation in Power and Social Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates whether and how multiparty elections, introduced in many African countries since the early 1990s, affect a government’s commitment to welfare policies. We hypothesise that contested multiparty elections and turnovers between different leaders and political forces in government – even when democratic standards are not met – positively impact the promotion of social welfare. We test these hypotheses through a cross-sectional and time-series research design, making use of our new, comprehensive ‘Africa Leadership Change’ (ALC) dataset. Empirical results confirm that leaders elected through multiparty elections and countries that experience political alternations in government are associated with higher levels of social welfare.

Price-Level Targeting Versus Inflation Targeting in a New Keynesian Model with Inflation Persistence

We compare Price-Level Targeting (PLT) versus Inflation Targeting (IT) using a New Keynesian model, which exhibits inflation persistence (as a result of partial indexation to lagged inflation). We find that, for standard values of the underlying parameters, (i) the loss associated to macroeconomic volatility may decrease about 29% by switching to PLT, (ii) a wide range of values for the weight given by the PLT central bank to output stabilisation allows to attain higher levels of social welfare, (iii) the higher the price rigidity the wider the range over which PLT outperforms IT, but the lower the welfare gain, and (iv) only when the level of indexation is higher than 65% it becomes better not to switch to PLT.

Generating spatially optimized habitat in a trade-off between social optimality and budget efficiency.

Auctions have been proposed as alternatives to payments for environmental services when spatial interactions and costs are better known to landowners than to the conservation agency (asymmetric information). Recently, an auction scheme was proposed that delivers optimal conservation in the sense that social welfare is maximized. I examined the social welfare and the budget efficiency delivered by this scheme, where social welfare represents the difference between the monetized ecological benefit and the conservation cost incurred to the landowners and budget efficiency is defined as maximizing the ecological benefit for a given conservation budget. For the analysis, I considered a stylized landscape with land patches that can be used for agriculture or conservation. The ecological benefit was measured by an objective function that increases with increasing number and spatial aggregation of conserved land patches. I compared the social welfare and the budget efficiency of the auction scheme with an agglomeration payment, a policy scheme that considers spatial interactions and that was proposed recently. The auction delivered a higher level of social welfare than the agglomeration payment. However, the agglomeration payment was more efficient budgetarily than the auction, so the comparative performances of the 2 schemes depended on the chosen policy criterion-social welfare or budget efficiency. Both policy criteria are relevant for conservation. Which one should be chosen depends on the problem at hand, for example, whether social preferences should be taken into account in the decision of how much money to invest in conservation or whether the available conservation budget is strictly limited.