The rapid development of digital technologies and their active implementation in all spheres of the economy, on the one hand, contribute to increased control over the activities of economic entities, and on the other hand, create new challenges associated with the dynamic development of cybercrime. The purpose of the article is to analyze the global trends in cybercrime in 2016-2023 (by calculating national levels of cybercrime) and to model the mechanisms of combating it in order to form a global, open and safe cyberspace, protect the population from cyber threats and cyber fraud, increase the effectiveness of financial monitoring procedures and control over transactions in cyberspace. The article presents the dominant directions, evolutionary, temporal and spatial patterns of the development of crime in cyberspace, clustering of the countries,and identification of leaders and outsiders in the field of cybercrime (through visualization density maps based on the construction of self-organized Kohonen maps). The results of the calculations confirm a significant increase in the level of cybercrime in the world since 2016 (in particular, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and active digital transformation). A comparative analysis of the indicator across countries made it possible to distinguish those with the highest rates of cybercrime (Slovenia, Iceland, Moldova, Georgia) and those with a significantly higher level of cyber security (Greece, Belgium, France, Germany).

The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between a country's macroeconomic stability and the level of transparency and public trust in the financial sector and public authorities. Canonical analysis and structural modeling served as methodological tools of the research. The study examined the data from eight EU countries (Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Italy) over the 2011-2021period. Eight indicators of public sector transparency and one indicator of the degree of public trust (Consumer Sentiment Index) were chosen to establish the relationship between the components. The results of structural modeling proved that public trust has a much greater impact on macroeconomic stability than indicators of public sector transparency. A 1-point increase in public trust leads the GDP to increase by 0.018% and the stability of the currency exchange rate – by 0.352%. Meanwhile the same effect from a 1-point increase in the level of public sector transparency amounts to 0.061% and 0.021% increases, respectively.

The article is devoted to the study of economic and social drivers of quality of life. The method of weighted sums and the Fishburn formula were employed to assess the level of quality of life. Using Ward's method and the Kalinsky-Kharabash test, three clusters of countries were identified. The relationship between indicators was modeled with the Johansen, Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron tests. Five indicators of social development (children out of school, unemployment, literacy rate, hospital beds, total population) and six indicators of economic development (GDP, minimum wage, government expenditure on education, current health expenditure, state expenditure on physical culture and sports industry) were chosen to establish the relationship between the indicators. The research was focused on the data of 30 European countries. Two hypotheses were proposed and tested in the study. Hypothesis H1 was that public spending on education, health care, and sports stimulates an increase in the quality of life. This hypothesis was confirmed for all countries. Hypothesis H2 assumed that the number of children out of school, the level of unemployment, and illiteracy negatively affect the quality of life. This hypothesis was confirmed only for a small number of countries.

The article examines the relationship between the size of the shadow economy and indicators of the investment market development. Net inflow of foreign direct investments, volume of net investments in non-financial assets, volumes of portfolio investments, and net outflow of foreign direct investment were used as parameters characterizing the development of the investment market. The dependence between the indicators was analyzed using the regression equation, Shapiro-Wilk test. Research results demonstrate that the increase in the inflow and outflow of foreign direct investments leads to an increase in the size of the shadow economy without a time lag in Ukraine, Poland, Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and with a time lag of 1 year in Slovakia and Hungary. The largest impact on the size of the shadow economy is made by the volume of inflow and outflow of direct foreign investments, while the volume of portfolio investments has a less significant effect. Consequently, it was concluded that the processes of inflow and outflow of direct foreign investments require enhanced control by specialized state executive bodies given the scale of their potential destabilizing impact on the macroeconomic stability of the country.