This paper examines the importance of economic incentives as a determinant of foreign direct investment in transition economies. We argue that an  international public-private joint venture can be seen as an institution that makes the disincentive problem less severe in newly liberalized economies. By a publicprivate joint venture we describe a set up where a foreign firm decides on the volume of foreign investment and the host country government offers a package of start-up investment and investment sharing rules to mitigate distortions which typical arise in economies in transition and lower developed countries. The public-private joint venture may take on a variety of forms to cope with different kind of distortions and economic risk.

Key words:
Foreign direct investment, transition economies, foreign ownership, information.

Measuring the performance of healthcare systems is of paramount importance for optimisation of health spending, as well as for elimination of deficiencies in the quality of care. Different statistical methods and measures of effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness and equity of this performance are available. Several performance indicators may be used, depending on the specific field of application and on the behaviour to be changed – of providers, professional bodies, citizens, or managers. This paper provides for a critical analysis of the currently used statistical techniques and indicators, in particular those aiming at measuring hospital performance for better health quality management.

Key words:
Healthcare, indicators, management, performance, quality.

The development of market relations in Ukraine calls forth the questions of strengthening the competitive capacity of enterprises on the market and their timely adaptation to changes in competitive marketing environment, recognition of an urgent need for practical application of the principles of marketing audit for evaluation of enterprise's production and sales operations, as well as revealing the problems and hidden potential in the way of reaching operational and strategic goals and achieving the desired result. The formation of marketing audit is one of the most complicated tasks of strategic management. Its necessity is preconditioned by the incoming information describing the financial and economic activity of an enterprise, by the elements of company's business environment, and on this basis by the coordination of the management system operation for achieving the set goals.

Key words:
Competitive capacity, marketing environment, marketing audit, strategic management.

The article presents approaches to analyzing the intellectual potential of entrepreneurial structures. The author proposes to carry out analysis of the intellectual potential of micro-business on the basis of fuzzy set techniques.

Key words:
Fuzzy logic, incidence matrix, intellectual potential, key entrepreneurial competences.

The article deals with the problem of the necessity to apply special methods for banking business valuation. The author presents and analyses main factors forming the expediency of using these methods and substantiates the need to apply special methods for thorough analysis of the object of valuation.

Key words:
Business value, effectiveness indicator, valuation of banking business, market value.

The article analyses the world system «center-periphery», its concept and principles of interaction among its elements: center, semi-periphery, and periphery. The author studies the stages of EU enlargement from the standpoint of «center-periphery» concept and defines the main tasks of European structural policy in the context of eastern enlargement and prevention of its peripherization.

Key words:
World system, centre, periphery, semi-periphery, economic development, geo-economic development, industrialization, accessibility index.

In 2005, Turkey was officially welcomed as a member candidate for the European Union. The accession process, however, is the most difficult in the history of the EU. Aside from political and social controversies, the readiness of the Turkish economy is frequently doubted. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of the Turkish economy and to compare it to the economies of Bulgaria and Romania at the time of their accession. The core analysis is based on the question whether the Turkish economy currently has a standard that is comparable to the economies of Bulgaria and Romania when their accession to the EU was agreed upon. If that was the case, the EU theoretically could not deny Turkish accession based on economic grounds.

The paper analyses the most advanced methodologies of defining trade barriers and their effects on trade restrictions. The author summarizes major economic policy instruments used to support trade in services and comes to a conclusion that trade barriers in services differ by type of services.