The Shadow Economy’s Phenomenon and Its Impact on the Development of Corporate Business and Households in Ukraine

The shadow economy, along with macroeconomic imbalances and limited resources, will become a key global risk for the next decade. Withdrawing cash flows from the shadow sector and directing them to the legal economy solves numerous political, social, and economic problems of a country. That's why assessing the level of the shadow economy and solving problems of legalizing cashflows in any country has theoretical and practical significance. The purpose of this study is to assess the level of the shadow economy in Ukraine and to identify the problems, which give rise to it in the context of new challenges of the crisis phenomena both in Ukraine and around the world. The paper presents a comprehensive study of the shadow economy phenomenon, examines the root causes of its occurrence. The specificity of the study consists in assessing the level of the shadow economy in Ukraine according to the existing methods, namely: the unprofitableness of enterprises “household expenses – retail sales and services”, electrical and monetary. According to the review of scientific works, it is necessary to use a comprehensive indicator of the shadow economy assessment. Thus, considerable attention is paid to deepening the methodological aspects of assessing the shadow economy based on multi-criteria methods. The result of the study is the calculation of the shadow economy's level, considering the shadow currency turnover, based on the fact that Ukraine is a dollar-dependent country. A large proportion of the capital withdrawal into the shadow circulation is associated precisely with currency fraud. The obtained results confirm that the legalization of currency cash turnover should be mandatory in the process of foreign exchange regulation's transformation in Ukraine. Achieving this goal is associated with the deregulation of the foreign exchange market and the banking sector on the basis of moderate liberalization, warning the country's economy against the deployment of credit booms, improving the institutional provision of financial intermediation, developing a full-fledged market for derivatives, harmonizing national legislation with the best world experience and international standards of regulation, supervision and reporting, continuous monitoring of public opinion on the actions of monetary authorities and the consequences of these actions for the welfare and economic stability of corporate business and households.