In the process of small business establishment and development, it is very important to understand both the financial needs of entrepreneurs and the main obstacles and difficulties arising in the way of financing. Alternative sources of financial support, along with traditional ones, create opportunities to increase funds, but the solution to the issue of their attraction should be based on modern effective methods and decision- making technologies. The article uses the decision tree method to determine the optimal alternative to financial support of small business at the early stages of the life cycle. The results highlight the importance of alternative source of resources for small business entities, namely business angels’ means. The empirical and statistical analysis confirms that access to alternative sources of financing for small businesses in EU countries is improving, while in Ukraine, informal financing is a rather new and underdeveloped area. Based on the analysis of the advantages of using the business angels’ funds, it was concluded that they need to implement their potential in small business of Ukraine. The results show that the decision tree method is an effective tool for deciding on the prioritization of a financial alternative to the small business, and is characterized by ease of use, forecast precision and problems solution novelty.

It is necessary to choose proper methodology and indicators for assessing sustainable economic development as the information becomes a tool for decision-making support of sustainable development policies and implementation of programs. In Ukraine, evaluating the results of implementation of different programs for development is essential as an analytical basis for making a strategy for the next period and a prerequisite for further progress.Certain shortcomings of linear models for evaluating the results appeared during the design and implementation of the strategy to manage sustainable economic development. The potential for establishing erroneous targets increases in the formation of strategic objectives for the next forecast period. There is a special need to choose adequate indicators to comprehensively approximate the factors of economic development and evaluation methods that allow more sensitively measuring the results of management decisions in the implementation of the strategy.The article evaluates the results of the Sustainable Development Strategy “Ukraine – 2020”, employing the potential of the neural network method for a flexible combination of a large number of factors in constructing nonlinear models of impact on the resulting indicator. As a result of applying the neural network model with one hidden layer for evaluation, based on 16 indicators identifying economic, social, and institutional aspects of sustainable development of Ukraine, it was found that institutional transformations contribute most to achieving sustainable development. Reforms in terms of deregulation and support of entrepreneurship, property rights protection, and competitive environment have the most significant positive impact. On the other hand, low efficiency of capital market reforms, implementation of the energy efficiency program, and reform in the field of public procurement determine the need to revise the program of their fulfilment.

The paper is devoted to research of existing variants of land reform in Ukraine towards cancelling the moratorium on the sale-purchase of agricultural lands. The authors prove that the financial function of the land is realized insufficiently, which is connected with the absence of open land market and ineffective functioning of state land regulation financial mechanism. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the directions of state land regulation in Ukraine on the basis of evaluating the economic effect of cancelling the moratorium on the sale-purchase of agricultural lands. The authors analyzed three most likely variants of land reform at the current stage of Ukraine’s economy development, and calculated economic effect from its implementation. Based on the calculations, conclusion is made about the feasibility of gradually cancelling the moratorium, which corresponds to third variant under study, which is offered to be implemented in two stages: 1) sale of state and community lands; 2) sale of private lands. Economic effect of implementing such a variant, calculated by the authors, gives a possibility to create additional annual cash flow to local budgets in the amount of 68-83 %, which is more than the revenue of other variants described in the paper. It is proven that for possibility to put the variant offered into practice, it is necessary to observe some prerequisites (organizational, financial, legal and regulatory), valuation of which enabled to offer the directions to improve state land regulation, the realization of which would favor the full functioning of agricultural land market.

The purpose of the study is to identify the peculiarities of the activities of a higher education institution during a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the russian army. On the example of the Higher Educational Establishment of Ukoopspilka “Poltava University of Economics and Trade”, the paper considers ways to search for and identify internal capabilities of the educational institution that would allow compensation and overcoming the negative impact of the aggressive external environment on the educational process, creating synergy between teaching, student education and youth involvement in volunteer activities. The paper describes the existing practices of partnership support in terms of interest in the learning process through the continuation of international cooperation, the application of analytical approaches to solving problems in matters of financial instability, the continuation of scientific and stabilization of the educational component, and the identification of existing experience in educational work at the university through involving young people in various career guidance and student activities. An important issue in the paper is the question of the volunteer activities of the university, which has implemented several projects to support war refugees and internally displaced persons from the temporarily occupied territories and the zone of active hostilities. Achieving such goals is possible only through a deep understanding of and adherence to the mission of Poltava University of Economics and Trade, which is so deeply perceived by the entire team of its employees.

The financial situation of the Ukrainian pension system and the problems of its reforming play an important role in determining the general standard of living in the country. The institutional weaknesses in the financial management of the state pension system have led to an unbalanced budget of the Pension Fund of Ukraine and a low standard of living for pensioners. In order to identify the potential for building an effective system of pension insurance, it is necessary to study the modern aspects of financial provision of the Ukrainian pension system. The article defines the economic interrelations between the processes of forming the financial resources of the Pension Fund of Ukraine and the volume and structure of the gross domestic product. In view of this, the financial sustainability of the state pension system of Ukraine has been researched and the determinants of its stable functioning in the years 1999–2017 have been identified, which enables to influence the process of effective formation and use of pension resources and to identify the strategic directions of reforming the pension system.