sources analysis shows that a significant part of the key issues in determining the
optimal size of budget expenditures for a given country with all its internal and external
factors remain unresolved. Therefore, every year during the process of Ukraine's fiscal
policy main directions defining for the relevant year, scholars and experts discuss the
main fiscal policy parameter – the share of GDP redistribution through the consolidated
budget.
The famous American scientist Richard Masgrave noted: «More than 20 percent
of the gross national product (GNP) in the USA is consumed by the government today.
Total state expenditures, including transfers, forming to 35 percent of GNP, and tax
revenues – more than 30 percent of GNP. Despite this, the state participation in the US
economy in comparison with other developed countries is not so significant. For
example, in Western Europe, more than half of economic activity is in the public sector.
In addition to budget functions, state policy influences the course of economic activity
through monetary, power and other mechanisms» [8, p.17].
Budget and GDP ratio - an important economic problem, due to the particular
state economy model functioning’ peculiarities. Ukraine has been showing a tendency
to increase the consolidated budget expenditures in recent years (Table 1). By itself,
this fact is not threatening because the average government spending in developed
countries has a wide range of differences – from 30 to 60% of GDP, which does not
prevent a sufficiently high level of well-being of the population. However, in Ukraine,
as in most emerging market countries, there are certain peculiarities in socio-economic
development, which requires scientific substantiation and determination of economic
expediency in relation to increase of budget expenditures.
Table 1 Public Finance Indicators of Ukraine for 2010-2017
Indicators
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Rate of GDP change, % in the
previous year
4.1
5.2
0.2
0
-6.6
-9.8
2.3
2.2
Budget Deficit, % of GDP
6.0
1.8
3.6
4.4
4.9
2.3
2.9
1.4
Government Expenditures, % of
GDP
34.9
32.0
35.2
34.8
33.4
34.3
35.1
35.4
Government Revenues, % of GDP
29.1
30.6
31.8
30.4
29.1
32.9
32.8
34.1
Tax Revenues to the budget, % of
GDP
21.4
25.5
25.5
24.3
23.5
25.6
27.3
27.8
State debt (state and guaranteed by
the state), % of GDP
39.9
36.3
36.6
40.3
70.3
79.1
80.9
71.8
Source: calculated by the authors according to the National Bank of Ukraine
(http://www.bank.gov.ua), Ministry of Finance of Ukraine (http://www.minfin.gov.ua) and the State
Statistics Service of Ukraine (http://www.Ukrstat.org)
The growth of the state’s role in the income redistribution is inherent in all
European countries. Their common feature is a significant share of public expenditure
in GDP (Table 2). It can be argued that in most countries with a developed market
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