The authors elaborate methods of forming, developing and disseminating the relations of mutual assistance in the conditions of modern competition. The essence of benchmarking and its historical roots are revealed. The authors dem-onstrate the significance of benchmarking in the post-socialist countries, the economies of which are at the stage of creating their own model of a «catching-up leap». The authors develop a standpoint that in order to overcome the tradi-tional ideology of competition, it is necessary to go beyond the purely economic relations and step into the field of ethics. Significant attention is paid to using the excellence model in the system of international standards. The authors believe that benchmarking activity should not be limited to analyzing processes and re-sults; it should encompass the study of the thinking mode of individuals, teams or nations as an element of the motivational mechanism. Benchmarking calls for creation of a system, which would satisfy the interests of both the leaders and the followers, that is, mutual gains. To a large extent, this task can be solved within the frames of collaborative benchmarking, which is especially effective in the conditions of creating innovative cooperation networks and clusters. High level of trust between the partners should lay the basis for the relations of rivalry and mu-tual assistance.

 

Key words:
Benchmarking, benchmarking code of behavior, best practice, collabora-tive benchmarking, competition, individual benchmarking, knowledge benchmark-ing, lagging behind, leadership, mode of thinking, mutual assistance, rivalry, trust.

The paper presents the essence, the prerequisites of mergers and acquisitions; it singles out modern trends of mergers and acquisitions, namely the development of the social component of enterprise integration; also the operations are analyzed in merges and acquisitions throughout the whole world and in Ukraine, in particular.

 

Key words:
Mergers and acquisitions, integration.

The basic political, institutional and economic risks while creation of the Eurasian Economic Union and their possible impact on its stability and efficiency of development is proved; the author’s position regarding the impossibility of the long-term socio-economic effects for the members of the Union is grounded; the probable risks for Russia as the leader of the integration process which prevent the Eurasian integration are identified.

Key words:
Risks,   integration, disintegration, Eurasia, Eurasian Economic Union, uncertainty.

The problem of the EU regional policy modernization under the conditionsof globalization processes activation is studied. The influence of global factorsand changes in the EU regional policy is determined produced on the transformationof the regional policy in Ukraine. In the context of the development of theUkraine’s regional policy the problems are defined of economic development andwelfare of the citizens in the regions of Ukraine, also the areas of cooperation betweenUkraine and the EU are outlined.

 

Key words:
Regional policy, globalization, regional economic development, income convergence, real convergence, inter-regional cooperation

Theoretical basis of institutional provision of the state pension insurance is investigated. Structure and content of formal institutions that regulate state pension insurance during the period of pension reform in Ukraine are analyzed. The basic informal institutions of the state pension insurance in our country are described. It was done a research on correspondence between informal institutions and official rules and regulations that determine the activity of the subjects of state pension insurance in Ukraine.

Key words:
State pension insurance, institutions of state pension insurance, pension reform, formal institutions of state pension insurance, informal institutions of the state pension insurance.

The essence of the concept «economic information» is considered; the role of accounting information in the management of economic information flows is proved. The classification features of accounting information are offered, the classification of users of accounting information depending on their information needs is schematically shown. The criteria of accounting information for the effective managerial decision-making are determined.

 

Key words:
Economic information, accounting information, information support, accounting, bank, management, users of accounting information.

The regime evolution of fiscal policy in the EMU indicates an internal con-flict between ensuring of the convergence and flexibility to adapt to asymmetric shocks. The convergence criteria, which precede the introduction of the Mone-tary Union is a formal basis for limiting the discretionary fiscal decisions, but they are not sufficient to create the institutional regulators of fiscal policy that is con-sistent with a single central bank operation. The transition from the Maastricht cri-teria to the Pact of Stability and Growth showed an attempt to combine the fiscal flexibility and responsibility under the relevant rules. However, this scheme proved to be vulnerable to the possibilities of opportunistic behavior and asym-metric penalty sanctions. Empirical analysis proved the lack of fiscal conver-gence in the integration area that manifested itself in the automatic stabilization of asymmetric fiscal policy during the phases of the business cycle in the context of the countries. The debt crisis in the EMU gave an impetus to the introduction of the system of harder fiscal rules, which, however, is not a return to the ideol-ogy of the Maastricht criteria.

 

Key words:
Fiscal rules, institutional constraints, convergence criteria, EMU, debt vul-nerability, fiscal reforms.

The problem of territorial differentiation of the labor markets of Ukraine and professional and qualification structure of human resources in terms of formation of innovative employment is observed. It is determined that the development of the regional labor markets is mainly influenced by the demographic and eco-nomic factors. Based on the analysis of the contemporary structure of the re-gional labor markets, the reasons of its deformation are defined and the direc-tions of approval of innovative forms of employment using the state youth em-ployment programming are observed.

 

Key words:
Regional labor markets, professional and qualification structure, youth em-ployment, state social programming.

This paper describes the role of industry as one of the key engines of eco-nomic growth in the countries with transition economies. The process is analyzed of change in global investment strategies, and related perspectives for reindustri-alization of the European economies. The main positive and negative aspects of Ukraine as a recipient country of FDI are singled out. Empirically assessed is the relationship between FDI flows to the European countries and Ukraine./p>

 

Key words:
Deindustrialization, reindustrialization, foreign direct investment, structural distortions.

The research of theoretical problems of the relationship between monetary policy and financial instability in the context of the major areas of macroeconomic theory is implemented. It is found out that monetary policy not always can predictably affect the real and financial sectors because of the availability complex and nonlinear relationships between them.

 

Key words:
Monetary policy, financial instability, price stability, interest rates, money supply, inflation targeting, the business cycle, speculations.

Existing econometric studies find that both information technology (IT) and outsourcing of goods and services production increase firms’ productivity. Until now, though, there has been no similar evaluation of IT outsourcing. This paper fills that gap using purchasing firms in India as a case study. It finds output elasticity for Software and IT Services (SWIS) outsourcing which implies bigger returns than those available from either general outsourcing or non-outsourced IT. There is also clear evidence that purchasing outsourced SWIS moves firms closer to parity with the most technically efficient firms. The paper concludes that outsourcing is a superior option for firms that wish to invest into IT and that in India it should be encouraged by policy.

 

Key words:
Information Technology, Software, Outsourcing, India.

Africa is the world’s second largest mobile market after Asia. Based on the fact that the continent’s wide economic growth and an increasingly competitive marketplace, the number of subscriptions in Africa is set to reach one billion by 2015. The transformation of Nigeria»s telecommunications access since the licensing of three GSM networks in 2001 and a fourth one in 2002 has yielded a huge result. The country continues to be one of the fastest growing markets in Africa with triple-digit growth rates almost every single year since 2001. In this paper we carried a report containing a market overview and analysis, key statistics, regulatory issues and forecast for the mobile market in 2017. In conclusion we find out that Nigeria has overtaken South Africa to become the continent»s largest mobile market almost 100 million subscribers, but however, market penetration remains at only about 60% in early 2012 as a result of the global economic crisis, reinforced in 2010 but then declined again in 2011.

 

Key words:
Nigeria, mobile, market, subscriber, growth, gsm companies.

In this paper the characteristics of international trade of the Black Sea Re-gion economies and the European Union are examined. By using the relevant trade indices we examine the extroversion, the openness and the competitive advantage of the countries of the region in the international trade. Extroversion and export performance has deteriorated for the majority of the countries of the region. The examination of relevant trade indices (as the Balassa Index), show that the majority of the exporting products of the Black Sea Region refer to the low, and medium-low technology category, where they have the comparative ad-vantage compared to the European Union. The need for a policy that would ac-tively encourage the development of further trade and economic relationships between EU and the other countries of the region is highlighted.

 

Key words:
International Trade, Balassa Index, Black Sea region.

Advertising expense and intangible assets are the accounting lines that give evidence of the promotion efforts of any entrepreneur. At hard times cultural entrepreneurs have to maximize their promotion efforts, which are addressed to private stakeholders and audiences, in order to survive in a very competitive arena, where the State and public administrations cannot confirm their past times’ grant-making. Using a recent microeconomic database we empirically estimate the rela-tion between advertising expenses, intangibles, net assets and profitability (gain or loss/total assets) for Italian Visual Arts and Landscape. This sample is defined referring to the latest legislative definition of Italian Arts. Italian Arts traditionally include performing and visual arts. In our investigation, performing arts are excluded but we include the «landscape» according to the national Code of Cultural Heritage and Activities the Italian Parliament approved in 2004. The landscape is the human landscape of villas, castles, archeological sites, etc. and the natural landscape of parks and other environment where the anthropological impact is less important than in the human landscape. The sample includes the Event Managers too: these ones are innovative entrepreneurs who do not directly perform cultural events but they support, manage, advertise and promote them. The research gives evidence that Italian Visual Arts and Landscape are profitable despite of the financial crisis, when advertising expenses are one fourth of program service expenses and intangibles are minimized.

 

Key words:
Advertising; intangible; visual art; landscape; cluster analysis.

The paper deals with the issues, trends and challenges of modeling the development of innovative economy amid modern globalization.

 

Key words:
Globalization, models, innovative economy, national economy, innovation system, scientific knowledge, technology, innovation clusters.