The aim of the research is to identify trends that set the agenda of the structural reforms of OECD countries, as well as of the organization’s partner countries, in the context of the place of financial sector reforms in it.

The authors apply the following methods: content-analysis of sources, monitoring of directions and instruments of economic policy in the financial sector, analysis of approaches used by international organizations in order to determine reform priorities (benchmarking), and decomposition of the components of the financial sector reform agenda. The paper shows that the agenda of financial liberalization, formulated in the 1970s, is mostly exhausted, although a certain gap remains between countries with developed and emerging markets in terms of the financial liberalization index. Financial regulatory reforms focused on the goal of building a more resilient global financial system, formulated in the aftermath of the 2007–2009 crisis, are affecting all countries and are also ending. Reforms are now coming to the fore, focusing on areas of the structural transformation agenda such as inclusive growth and an environmental perspective.

The paper concludes that the main components of financial reforms in an inclusive context are financial inclusion, financial and digital literacy. In terms of the environmental agenda, the countries are focusing on the tasks of directing financial resources to the implementation of the UN sustainable development goals, introducing ESG investment principles for financial institutions, and developing and implementing principles for issuing green financial instruments.

The financial market integration is important for the investors to have the portfolio diversification of their investment. The investors do the portfolio diversification to the market where they can have higher return with lower risk.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse portfolio diversification opportunities among Asian Developed, Emerging and Frontier markets.

The study is performed using various methods such as Correlation, Granger causality test, Johansen cointegration test, Portfolio diversification analysis using various diversification strategies. The study examines portfolio diversification opportunities by comparing non-diversified portfolio (home market) with diversified portfolios (Equal Weighted Portfolio, Minimum Variance Portfolio and Maximum Sharpe Portfolio). The gain from the portfolio diversification was also analyzed to measure the benefits of the diversification. The study found that the lack of integration among many markets proves the existence of the portfolio diversification opportunity. Study is unique in a nature that it examines the portfolio diversification benefits for the investors in developed, emerging and frontier markets, as past studies were limited to developed markets only.

The study concluded that the investors can gain better return, lower risk and higher Sharpe with portfolio diversification in international market. The researchers can examine in future the portfolio diversification benefits with other frontier and emerging markets for the investors of the developed markets.

The quality of financial management is one of the key factors in achieving the goals and objectives of both commercial organizations and public sector organizations.

The subject of this study is the relationship between the budget process participants, arising as a result of organizing and conducting an assessment of the quality of financial management in accordance with the budget legislation of the Russian Federation. The degree of scientific development of the topic is assessed as low since at the moment there is no consistent approach to assessing the quality of financial management from the point of view of financial management, and therefore this issue is relevant.

The aim of the study is to substantiate the need to improve the methodology for assessing the quality of financial management of the chief administrators of budgetary funds. The issue of assessing the quality of financial management in the public administration sector is controversial and fairly new in the theory of public and municipal finance.

The author used the following methods in the paper: an abstract-logical method, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction.

As a result of the study, a number of problems have been identified related to the reliability of the assessment of the quality of financial management of the chief administrators of budgetary funds, its significance, comparability, and objectivity, and the quality of legal and methodological support for the assessment.

It is concluded that it is necessary to clarify the current budget legislation and eliminate legal conflicts, separate the results of assessing the quality of financial management of federal ministries, services, and agencies, adjust the formulas for calculating the values of indicators in the direction of “budget expenditures management”, and also introduce disciplinary responsibility of the head of the chief administrator of budgetary funds.

The novelty of the study lies in the proposal of specific measures to improve the assessment of the quality of financial management of the chief administrators of budgetary funds in the framework of developing measures to improve the efficiency of the budget process.

The transformation of the economy from a production-based economy to a knowledge economy has increased the relevance of Intellectual Capital (IC). With the emergence of the Integrated reporting framework, the corporates have started reporting intellectual capital in annual reports, business responsibility reports.

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the IC disclosure (ICD) and variables like Firm Size, Leverage, and Company Profitability. To find the relationship, a sample of 30 Bombay stock exchange-listed non-financial firms have been taken into consideration for three years, 2018–2020.

he study concludes that firm size positively impacts the disclosure of IC. It can be inferred that the medium and small firms will not disclose much information related to Intellectual capital than large corporations. However, leverage negatively affects the disclosure of IC. It is rightly supported as higher the leverage; low disclosure will be there as investors wouldn’t be willing to invest in the organization. To attract investments, organizations wouldn’t disclosure the debt level. There is no influence of profitability on the ICD. The authors believe that the government should spread awareness about the disclosure of Intellectual Capital at the macro level and train the employees and management at all levels and sizes to increase the disclosure level. 

The subject of the research is a substantive study of the modern realities of commercialization of public finance management and the possibility of its organizational and legal modernization.

The purpose of the research is to establish the current state of commercialization of public finance management and to identify emerging problems in managing the liquidity and debt of the state, together with the possibilities and ways of leveling them and hedging risks through the organizational and legal modernization of public finance management.

The relevance of scientific research and its scientific novelty are based on the absence in the Russian Federation of fundamental research on the current state of public finance management and its commercialization factors. The domestic scientific and practical literature touches on certain aspects of the issue under study, which does not allow us to establish cause-and-effect relationships of problems arising in the course of public finance management.

The research is based on general scientific and special methods containing elements of comparative jurisprudence, system analysis, structural and functional approach, as well as a comprehensive and complete study and critical analysis of domestic and foreign fundamental scientific research, containing a number of studies in the field of legal regulation, public administration, econometrics, and macroeconomic forecasting. The collection and analysis of the material for the preparation of scientific research was carried out by a scientific group taking into account the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the authors’ citations, as well as the significance of their individual research.

The authors conclude about the need to hedge risks when exercising the authority to manage liquidity and debt as integral elements of macroeconomic policy, with the elimination of the fragmented organizational structure of the authorities. Based on international experience, a number of authors’ recommendations have been developed to create, within the framework of organizational and legal modernization, a unified effective commercialized public finance management system with the establishment of promising potential development options to ensure the achievement of the state’s sustainable development goals stipulated by national projects. 

The research aims to look into the factors that influence Jordanian commercial banks profitability.

A sample of 13 commercial banks out of 16 listed on the Amman Stock Exchange for 2011–2020 was selected to achieve this goal.

The study variables were analysed using the E-Views software for descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and simple and multiple linear regression analyses.

The study shows that when the independent factors had integrated, they impacted the dependents factor, reflecting on Return on Assets. The net credit interest to net credit facilities ratio positively affects, in contrast, the net interest and commissions income to total income ratio, the provision for credit facilities and interest in suspense to net credit facilities ratio, the bank size negatively affect the profitability measured by return on assets in Jordanian commercial banks.

The main hypothesis of the paper was the thesis that banking regulation is intended to minimize the probability of financial instability, including banking crises, which have long-lasting and destructive consequences for the economy.

The practical aim of this investigation is to explore the impact of banking regulation instruments on the banking crisis probability. Despite a large and growing body of literature that has investigated the role of banking regulation in ensuring financial stability, only a few of them explored the aspect of this problem we are considering, and this constitutes the scientific novelty of the research.

The results confirm the effectiveness of banking regulation in predicting periods of stability in banking systems.

Based on the use of bibliometric analysis with the software tool VOSviewer v.1.6.10, the main patterns in the theory of banking regulation development have been identified. To conduct an empirical analysis, the author used a database of eleven European countries from 1998 to 2017, whose banking systems had manifestations of a systemic banking crisis. Binary modeling (logit model) was used as a scientific and methodological tool for statistical research. The conducted empirical analysis declared the need to tighten banking regulations in the field of non-performing loan control since it leads to an increase in the banking crisis probability. The results of binary modeling also emphasized the importance of macroeconomic and monetary factors, the neglect of which leads to the vulnerability of banking institutions and, consequently, to banking crises.

An important conclusion of the analysis is that in order to minimize systemic banking crises, it is necessary to ensure the achievement of the target parameters of the main macroeconomic indicators, expressed in terms of the optimal level of inflation and annual GDP growth. The proposed binary model can be used to further study the causes of a banking crisis, as well as methodological and empirical clarification of the role of banking regulation in the probability of its occurrence.

The aim of the study is to identify the problems hindering the effective interaction of banks with SMEs and to determine the role of trust and other institutional factors in decision-making. Despite the recovery in the SME lending sector in 2019–2020, the needs of small firms in loans are not fully satisfied. The task of enhancing interactions between banks and the sectors under study requires a fundamental approach and is relevant.

The BDI (Belief-DesireIntention) model developed by M. Bratman was used as a method for investigating the decision-making process in the subject area under consideration. The place of this tool in the system of methods of analysis and support of decisionmaking processes is shown; the universality of the BDI model is substantiated and the main areas of its application are indicated.

The scientific novelty of the paper is the modification of the BDI model, which is carried out by taking into account the trust factor and increasing the number of decision-making phases.

The prospects of using the modified BDI model as a methodological basis for the formation of the architecture of banking ecosystems are considered. On the example of the experience of a quantitative assessment of the trust factor between banks and small firms, the possibilities of using the index method to measure other institutional factors of the modified M. Bratman model and determine the level of feasibility of a transaction planned in the area of lending are investigated.

The author concluded that a necessary condition for enhancing the lending activities of banks interacting with small firms is the formation of an adequate institutional environment in accordance with the methodological principles outlined in this article.

The purpose of this study —  is to determine how financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviours (determinants of financial literacy) influence an individual’s overall financial well-being.

The methodological basis of the study was a survey of 115 respondents, for which a well-structured questionnaire was developed. Smart PLS version 3 software was used to conduct the PLS analysis. The authors applied a multivariate methodology called Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to integrate characteristics that cannot be seen directly.

It is concluded that both financial attitudes and financial behaviour affect financial well-being, with financial behaviour having a greater impact on financial well-being, while financial knowledge does not. The ultimate goal of financial literacy is to increase financial well-being among the population. The results of this study can be used by policy makers, government and educational institutions who should pay more attention to improving the very determinants of financial literacy that affect financial well-being.

The aim of the article is to test the hypothesis about the applicability of machine learning methods to train models that allow to accurately predict the market capitalization of an enterprise based on data contained in three main forms of financial statements: Income statement, Balance sheet, and Cash flow statement.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the proposal of an alternative approach to the actual finance problem —  business valuation.

The conducted empirical study allows us to test the hypothesis under consideration. We train various models using the most popular machine learning methods (LASSO, Elastic Net, KNN, Random Forest, SVM, and others). To determine the best approach for assessing the value of a company, the effectiveness of different methods is compared based on the R² performance metric (86,7% for the GBDT). Financial statements data of NYSE and NASDAQ companies are used. The study also addresses the problem of the interpretability of the trained models. The most important features are identified —  the forms of financial statements and their specific items that have the greatest impact on market capitalization. Three independent ways to determine feature importance indicate the significance of the information contained in the Income statement. In particular, Comprehensive income was the most important item for accurate predictions. Robust methods of variable normalization and missing data imputation are also highlighted. Finally, various ways of improving the developed models are recommended to achieve even higher accuracy of forecasts.

The study concludes that machine learning can be applied as a more accurate, unbiased, and less costly approach to value a company. Feature importance analysis can also be used to understand and further explore the value creation process.

Mergers and acquisitions performance is akin to financial perplex that researchers have been trying to solve. The objective of the study is to examine the reaction of shareholders to the announcement of mergers and acquisitions in the pre-event, around the event and during the post-event period of the Indian manufacturing firms. The event study research methodology has been used for analysis along with parametric and non-parametric tests. The study shows that investors can earn a significant return if they purchase shares of the acquiring company one day before and sell them one day after the announcement day. The findings concluded that while the announcement of a merger or acquisition generates a positive reaction, this reaction is only temporary and is swiftly diluted. This shows that investors initially overreacted to these announcements and took immediate corrective action. The study recommends to investors, “Earlier the shareholders sell, more the shareholders gains”.

The relevance of the study is due to the monopolization of the markets for goods and services by transnational digital companies.

The object of the study is the finances of the two world’s largest digital and oil companies — Meta Platforms Inc. and Saudi Arabian Oil Company.

The subject of the study is economic relations in the functioning and regulation of the economic behavior of traditional and digital companies in the context of the digital transformation of existing markets and the creation of new markets for digital goods.

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of development and patterns of functioning of the system of financial resources of digital companies.

The methodological base of the study is based on the financial analysis of a digital and oil company, including a comparative analysis of market capitalization, financial results and balance sheets (revenue, net income, assets, liabilities), financial condition, liquidity, profitability, and a comprehensive assessment of performance. It has been established that five manufacturers of digital goods by capitalization in 2020–2022 were among the 12 world leaders and significantly strengthened their positions against the backdrop of traditional business during the pandemic. The size of the largest oil company in 2014–2020 was more significant than that of a digital company, but the gap in dynamics decreased from 7 times in 2017 to 3 times in 2020. At the same time, the liquidity of the balance sheet of a digital organization is 4–7 times higher than that of an oil company, the financial condition is absolutely stable, and independence from external creditors is the highest. The oil company’s cost-effectiveness indicators are still higher, as the digital one invests in network development and attracting new users. However, in dynamics, the oil company’s profitability has halved over the past four years.

The author comes to the conclusion that in the medium term, a digital company is projected to outperform an oil company in terms of size and efficiency. For the first time in international and domestic science, it is proposed to increase normative values of liquidity and financial stability indicators of a digital company by 4–7 times higher compared to traditional organizations, which determines the scientific novelty of the study.

Today Russian companies have a low level of compliance with the principles of sustainable economy, which can be largely determined by a weak interest of some corporate stakeholders to ESG (environmental, social and governance) indicators. It determines the relevance of studying the individual groups of stakeholders and determine the measure of their interest in ESG-strategy.

The purpose of this work is to determine which shareholders are most interested in ESG indicators of companies whose securities are traded on the Russian stock market. The research is based on the data from Yahoo Finance and the website of the Sustainalytics, Inc. company as of the end of 2021.

Cluster, variance, regression and correlation analyses were carried out and methods of descriptive statistics were used.

Results of this work have revealed the presence of the features of ownership structure of Russian companies in comparison with companies of developed countries. The lack of insiders’ interest in corporate ESG characteristics has been confirmed. At the same time, the increase in the share of institutional shareholders leads to decrease in the assessed risk of ESG but its rate is less than the change in the shares of institutional owners. The different importance of individual components of the ESG assessment for institutional shareholders has been noted.

The novelty of this research is the study of Russian investors and issuers that have not been systematically studied before as well as the ascertainment of complex influence of insiders/outsiders and institutional/private investors. The scientific significance is determined by the development of a new approach to study the influence of the degree of investor responsibility on corporate characteristics. The practical significance of the results lies in obtaining the possibility of developing targeted incentive tools for company shareholders to increase their interest in corporate ESG-indicators and to increase the sustainability of the company and territories. This research will be of interest to investors, company managers, authorities, non-profit organizations and specialists in the field of ESG investment.

Institutional quality and effectiveness of government institutions are important factors for sustainable and dynamic economic growth. These factors can have a significant impact on the dynamics of economic inequality and poverty in a country. The number of publications on this topic began to increase about 20–30 years ago. Scientists have been researching whether the government is able to influence the problem of economic inequality, which is growing since the 1980s, and on what factors it depends.

This topic remains relevant today, as all the necessary answers have not been received yet.

The purpose of this research article is to clarify the relationships between the institutional structure quality of an economy and the income inequality of households.

The article uses such methods as analysis and synthesis, systematization, classification, and categorization of information; classical correlation analysis, as well as the method of analysis of qualitative pairwise correlation. The study highlights that there is high dependence between the analyzed variables in some countries if we look at them in separately. This dependency can take on both negative and positive values. At the same time, analyzing the full sample of countries, as well as in quartile groups classified by the level of income inequality, we did not reveal any pattern or special sign by which the dependence between the studied variables becomes more pronounced and distant from zero. The study shows that the correlation value between the variables is just below zero over the Pearson correlation coefficient. More unambiguous results were obtained when the list of countries was filtered by the indicator of the inequality transparency index. When analyzing this particular portion of our sample of countries, we obtained results with moderately negative dependence between the study variables.

We concluded that for developed countries with an effective government and relatively low levels of income inequality, the decline in the quality of the institutional structure of the economy on average will be accompanied by an increase in income inequality and vice versa.

The article is devoted to the research of economic and tax distortions arising from double economic taxation of distributed profits in the form of dividends to participants–individuals.

The goal of the article is to develop approaches to the development of the Russian tax system. In order to achieve it, we summarize theoretical ideas of solving the problem and approaches of foreign countries. We also review the Russian context of taxation of dividends. The following features of Russian tax system are analyzed. First, distortion of tax regime in favor of debt financing of companies, and second, sufficiently competitive level of aggregate tax rate on distributed profits compared to developed countries. The presence of “debt bias” in the financing of Russian companies was revealed.

The different scenarios of reform of the Russian tax system are analyzed. The authors concluded that feasibility of transition to capital taxation with two elements: (1) partial exemption of dividends from taxation at the level of individual (recipient of profits) and (2) harmonization of the dividend tax regime with income tax regime from capital appreciation.

A bifurcation point has arisen in the transformation of the global monetary and financial system, associated with its further digital transformation: will it be based on private digital currencies like Bitcoin, or on the basis of central bank digital currencies (CBDC)? To a large extent, this depends on the willingness of economic agents to use virtual currencies.

The purpose of the study is to explore the factors determining the attitude of economic agents to digital currencies and the impact of financial literacy on using these instruments as an investment object and means of payment.

The authors use the following research methods: content analysis, retrospective analysis, methods of comparative cross-country analysis, and empirical research in the form of an online survey of graduate financial students. This study is one of the first to reveal differences in the assessment of their knowledge and readiness to use digital currencies of financial and non-financial students, as well as to confirm an adequate assessment of the risks and opportunities of different types of virtual currencies if students have financial knowledge. The research shows that the situation with the decisionmaking of economic agents on the use of cryptocurrencies and the CBDC differs: in the first case, the initiative comes from the economic agents themselves, who make decisions at their own peril and risk; in the second case, economic agents are confronted with the fact of the existence of the CBDC and the need to use them.

The authors conclude that the population’s low financial and digital literacy can create a mental barrier to the use of CBDC, complicating their implementation in national monetary systems. The lack of financial literacy leads to an exaggeration of their knowledge by participants in the cryptocurrency market.

Banсassurance has recently appeared on the market but is developing rapidly. The subject of the study is the process of combining banks and insurance companies, which contributes to the emergence of new products, increased risk protection, improved customer service quality, and increased profitability of their business. The purpose of the research is to study the state of bancassurance at the present stage in Russia and to set goals to overcome the difficulties of developing a joint business of banks and insurance companies. The author uses the following methods: comparative, statistical, and factor analysis, identification of trends, graphical comparisons, etc. Theoretical analysis of research on this issue allowed the author to clarify the concept of “bancassurance” and group the motives of interaction and the advantages of cooperation between banks and insurance companies. The result of the practical analysis was the identification of current trends in bancassurance in the country: a decrease in the number of participants; the predominance of large institutions in the bancassurance market, concentrating a large share of assets; imposing additional services on customers, which as a result increases their debt burden. The systematic and integrated approaches of the research allowed the author to identify important problems that require a primary solution (the imposition of bancassurance products and their inflated price, high costs for the sale of products, and the presence of contradictions between the bank and the insurance company). The author concludes that systematic and complete informing to the population about the importance of bancassurance products, providing customers with their independent choice, as well as the introduction of joint business standards of banks and insurance companies using modern digital technologies will bring the Russian bancassurance market to a higher level of development. The prospect of further study of the subject is presented by the author in a more detailed study of minimizing factors that negatively affect the merger of banking and insurance businesses.