FINANCIAL IMBALANCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINIAN REGIONS IN ECONOMIC INSTABILITY

Abstract. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed significant structural flaws, caused deterioration of living and labor conditions, and slowed down economic growth paces for both regions and the country as a whole. It makes the domestic economy vulnerable to various stresses that, in turn, increases the vulnerability of financial systems and reduces their financial resilience. The paper aims to analyze the trends and factors causing financial imbalances of regions in economic instability and substantiate the consequences for their economic growth. The theoretical foundations of financial imbalances are expanded by decomposing financial stability, financial vulnerability, and financial instability. The interpretation of the concept of financial imbalances is expanded. The financial imbalances of Ukrainian regions in 2015—2020 are detected based on the suggested algorithm using the selected indicators. Depending on the year and type, the paper reveals the regions with a consistently low level of financial imbalances, high negative level, and a noticeable accumulation of financial imbalances. The causes of their emergence are explained, including the low capacity of the state to secure a sufficient amount of revenues and thus the budget balance, the low quality of planning and executing the budgets, weak relationship between budget programs and strategic priorities of regional development, domination of consumer expenditures over the development expenditures, inadequate public regional policy, falling volume of capital investment and poor investment attractiveness, declining production and thus deteriorating financial results in basic types of activity in the region, falling income of the population at the background of aggravated social tension and growing unemployment. The author suggests arrange of measures to prevent the emergence of financial imbalances and a set of efficient tools to regulate them. The paper emphasizes the need to develop a unified system of indicators in Ukraine similar to the scoreboard in Europe to measure imbalances on both macro and regional levels in order to detect prospective risks of imbalances emergence and expand the opportunities for their elimination or regulation. Keywords: financial imbalances, regional development, financial instability, financial capacity, financial vulnerability. JEL Classification H73, O40, R13 Formulas: 0; fig.: 2; tabl.: 2; bibl.: 16.