INFRASTRUCTURE: REDEFINING APPROACHES TO THE CONCEPT AND CLASSIFICATION.

The growing demand of the world economy for infrastructure-related capital increases the practical importance of its academic research. However, there are significant differences in the understanding of the term "infrastructure" and its classification. Consequently, the results obtained by different researchers are often incomparable. All this requires once again refer to the concept of infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a flexible framework for the concept of infrastructure, to examine the presence of the concept's core among the research for the last 50 years and to identify the ways to create infrastructure classification system, following the same logic of flexibility. Achieving this purpose allows, on the one hand, adapting the concept to specific research goals and objectives and, on the other hand, making the results comparable. The authors emphasize to the importance in advancing the understanding of how to ensure the usefulness of economic research for the formulation of economic policy in terms of infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]