An important condition for economic growth and for improving the quality of life of the population is the growth of entrepreneurial activity, especially its student component. Students partly receive necessary knowledge, skills and experience in the field of entrepreneurship during their studies. However, there are also factors in the academic environment that act as barriers to the growth of students’ entrepreneurial potential. The subject of the research is a set of theoretical, methodological and practical issues aimed at further development of students’ entrepreneurial potential and its activation in terms of the significant role in the academic environment. The purpose of the research is to consider the theoretical basis of the concept of entrepreneurial potential, to study foreign experience in researching the students’ entrepreneurial potential, to investigate the role of the university environment of higher educational institutions in Latvia in the formation and activation of students’ entrepreneurial potential. The methods used by the authors are axiomatic, analysis and synthesis, monographic, sociological survey, statistical analysis of quantitative data from a questionnaire survey. The results of the research. The parameters of the real and potential participation of Latvian students in entrepreneurial activity and the main barriers of expanding the scale of students’ entrepreneurial activities were determined. The activities realized in the academic environment, stimulating interest in entrepreneurship and the real involvement of students in this activity were proposed. Correlation analysis of the factors of activating the entrepreneurial students’ potential in the university environment and the level of students' readiness to found their own enterprise put knowledge related to a specific entrepreneurial activity in the first place. The field for applying the results of the work. The materials, results and conclusions of the article can be used by research organizations, government bodies, higher education institutions and student organizations. Conclusions. Our analysis of the entrepreneurial potential of Latvian students is extremely important in the study and development of entrepreneurship both nationally and at the level of individual higher education institutions. The obtained results make it possible to assess the situation and take measures towards creating a more favorable learning environment for the development and implementation of students' entrepreneurial intentions.

This article aims to test empirically two popular hypotheses about territorial economic differences in the modern world. According to the first hypothesis, economic differences between countries in the modern world are not as large as regions' differences within countries. According to the second hypothesis, the decline in the degree of economic differences between countries is due to the relatively faster economic development of capital regions. Investigation of the economic differences on various territorial levels realized applying the method of comparing the coefficient of variation of the income of the population. The source of the empirical data for this research is the Sub-national Human Development Index (SHDI) database created by the Netherlands Institute for Management Research of the Radboud University, which contains such indicator as Income index of SHDI in the inner regions of 161 countries in the world for the period from 2000 to 2017. A comparison of economic differences at different territorial levels revealed that in the 21 st century, neither in the world as a whole nor in the EU regions' differences within countries are higher than differences between countries. However, starting with 2015 the economic differences between inner regions of the EU countries began to outweigh the economic differences between countries themselves, and this is the specifics of the European Union. In the 21 st century, both inter-country and intra-country regional economic differences in the EU countries are significantly lower than in the world as a whole. The economic importance of non-capital regions is gradually increasing in the EU, although for the time being the EU (and probably the world as a whole) still characterized by the economic growth, which is based mainly at the expense of capital regions.

In modern social science, the concept of multidimensional poverty is considered the most progressive approach to measuring poverty in countries of various development levels, including the developed ones. As an indicator of poverty in the EU, the multidimensional index of the risk of poverty and social exclusion (AROPE) is used, which integrates the indicators of income poverty, material deprivation and exclusion from the labour market. The empirical basis for its calculation is the data of the survey "Statistics of income and living conditions in the EU" (EU-SILC), published by the statistical office of the European Union. Within the framework of this article, the authors tried to contribute to the theoretical and methodological basis for studying the issue of multidimensional poverty by measuring and analysing it within the framework of the resource approach using the empirical data collected by the authors in one of the peripheral regions of Latvia -Latgale, which for many years has had the lowest indicators of economic development in the country. The resource-based approach is founded on the following methodological path: resources available for the people and households can be transformed into capital as a result of its activation and capitalization that, in its turn, can give the person socially economic benefit, i.e., a resource becomes a capital. The methodology of this study involves the application of new concepts: the "resource-poor" (few resources) and the "functional-poor" (low capitalization of available resources), as well as the "resource-functional poor", who, according to the authors, represent different target groups for the social policy, since they fundamentally differ in terms of both the causes of poverty and the approaches to supporting these groups.

Youth unemployment is a serious problem in Latvia, as unemployed young people make up 16.3 % of the total number of unemployed in the country, while in the Latgale region the number of unemployed young people aged 15—24 years was 18.8 % of the total number of unemployed in the country in 2015. The purpose of this study is to identify the main current causes of high unemployment amongst young people in the Latgale region of Latvia aged 15—24 years. This age group of young people acted as a target group for sociological research based on a quota sample (by sex and age) in an online survey of respondents in 2016. The results of the study were processed using the Statistika program. The transformation of social and economic processes in the world, Europe and the post- Soviet space has led to changes in the labor market of young people, which are objective and subjective, contradictory, which continue to this day. It is established that the behavioral rationalism of young people (labor mobility, vocational education, etc.) in the regional labor market is combined with its behavioral irrationalism (lack of desire to work for various reasons, the need for contact with family and friends, etc.). This is due to the growing uncertainty in the youth labor market due to the growth of competition, the emergence and growth of flexible forms of employment, depriving young people of the clarity of career and confidence in the future. The survey results also show that the majority of unemployed youth in the Latgale region deliberately refuses to emigrate outside Latvia and would like to link their future with the region and the country.

The university, understood in a simplified way as an institution representing the system of higher education, is distinguished by longevity. However, it also underwent evolution at the turn of the century under the influence of various conditions. As a result, various models of the university are emerging with the most promising one known now as the entrepreneurial university. This model implies greater openness of the university to the socio-economic environment, flexible adaptation to the needs of customers, stakeholders and the market, market competitiveness based on marketing and the ability to diversify sources of income. Particular attention is paid to creating and increasing the entrepreneurial potential of students. The aim of the article is to consider issues related to the prerequisites and ways of developing University 3.0 in Latvia. The objectives of the article are as follows: to find out the main external and inter-university prerequisites and barriers to creating entrepreneurial universities, to study international experience in the formation of prerequisites for the creation of entrepreneurial universities, to assess the major prerequisites for the establishment of entrepreneurial universities in Latvia. Causal analysis and comparative analysis were used as the major research method. An empirical assessment of the prerequisites for the development of University 3.0 in Latvia is given on the basis of our comparative analysis of the parameters of the Global Competitiveness Index. It is proposed to discuss the need for a state programme of at least a pilot project for the creation of two or three entrepreneurial universities so far, which will allow us to have our own experience in removing economic, social and cultural barriers to the modernisation of our higher education, the emergence of our own strong entrepreneurial leaders in higher education.