The article is devoted to finding the answer to two research questions. What illegal practices are most significant for clusters of developed countries formed by similarities in trends in corruption, shadow economy, money laundering, and crime rates? What social, economic, regulatory, and digital factors most influence them in each group? The pair correlation coefficients for illicit practices indicators confirm the presence of tight and statistically significant relationships in their trends for 36 developed countries. The agglomerative clustering and canonical analysis results identified that tackling the shadow economy is crucial for Estonia, Slovenia, and Lithuania; corruption for Portugal, Hungary, Cyprus, etc.; the shadow sector and crime levels for Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand; corruption, money laundering, and crime for Canada, Germany, the USA, etc.; four illegal practices for Italy, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The canonical analysis revealed that social and regulatory factors influence the trends of illicit practices in developed countries more than economic and digital ones. Network analysis showed their single moderate influence in most cases. Edge evidence probability analysis confirmed a high probability of a relationship between some pairs of social, economic, regulatory, digital and illegal indicators. However, Bayesian network analysis showed a low likelihood of mutual influence of single factors, confirming the importance of the group influence.

The article analyses socio-economic profiles of countries that are victims of cybercrimes due to attacks by malicious programs and viruses spread through email applications, vulnerabilities of information systems and computer networks. The study is based on two hypotheses. The first is that powerful countries with significant global influence are both the cybercrime initiators and cybercrime victims to a greater extent than those with weak leverage. The second hypothesis is based on the fact that the level of socio-economic development of countries can be an indirect motivation for cyber criminals to commit mass cyberattacks. The proposed hypotheses were proved using cluster analysis based on the k-means and silhouette methods for the data from 93 countries. It formed 12 groups of countries based on the cyberattack volume on email applications and networks. Using the Farrar-Glauber test, the research revealed that identified vulnerabilities in information systems highly correlated with other factors. Thus, this factor was eliminated from the data set. An associative analysis was used to form a profile of the victim countries. It identified common socio-economic characteristics for each group and developed the rules of cause-and-effect relationships for them. The cluster analysis results confirm the first hypothesis that the most powerful countries, such as the USA, China, Germany, France, and others, are both victims of cyberattacks and their initiators. The analysis of profiles of countries’ clusters based on the associative rules fully confirmed the second hypothesis.

This study investigates the impact of behavioral impulses, specifically corruption perception and government effectiveness, on macroeconomic stability through fiscal transmission channels. A Vector Autoregression (VAR) model was used to analyze the impulse responses of key macroeconomic indicators, including tax revenues, state budget expenditures, and GDP per capita, to shocks in corruption perception and governance quality. The findings reveal that improvements in corruption perception initially boost tax revenues and economic growth but have diminishing effects over time, emphasizing the need for sustained policy enforcement. In contrast, government effectiveness has a delayed but more persistent impact on fiscal stability. The study challenges the greasing-the-wheels hypothesis, demonstrating that corruption weakens rather than facilitates economic efficiency. The study contributes to the literature on behavioral economics by demonstrating that public trust, shaped by corruption control and effective governance, plays a more pivotal role in maintaining macroeconomic stability than the previously acknowledged indicators of individual well-being.

Research background:Cyber threats, corruption and money laundering are interconnected factors that pose significant challenges to the business environment. Their impact varies based on a country's economic development and the effectiveness of countermeasures. Despite global and national efforts to combat these threats, their combined influence on business conditions requires further examination. Purpose of the article: This study aims to analyse the impact of cyber threats, corruption, and money laundering on the business environment across different country groups. It identifies the most vulnerable aspects of business to triple threats and highlights countries exhibiting anomalies in their ability to counter these illegal practices. Methods: The research utilises data from 125 countries, incorporating the Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index, the National Cyber Security Index, and the Corruption Perceptions Index. Correlation analysis established statistically significant relationships between these threats and business conditions. Cluster analysis identified three country groups based on GDP, ease of doing business, and countermeasure effectiveness. Canonical analysis determined the most affected business sectors, while neural network modelling revealed countries with exceptionally high or low effectiveness in combating these threats. Findings & value added: The most affected areas include tax payments, international trade, contract enforcement, electricity access, and insolvency procedures. Among developed countries, Denmark, Finland, and Norway demonstrate high effectiveness in countering these threats, whereas Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece show lower efficiency. In developing nations, China, Thailand, and Kazakhstan exhibit strong countermeasures, while Egypt, Ghana, and Grenada lag behind. Among the least developed countries, Mozambique and Nicaragua show high effectiveness, while Venezuela and Yemen fall into the low-performance category. These findings provide a foundation for enhancing national policies and strategies to strengthen economic security and resilience against financial crimes and cyber threats.