MODELING THE FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY OF BUDGET EXPENDITURES IN THE CONTEXT OF CATEGORICAL AND TARGETED SOCIAL TRANSFERS
Abstract
The article examines the financial efficiency of budget expenditures on social protection and social security in Ukraine in the context of combining categorical and targeted approaches to social transfers. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing volume of social expenditures under conditions of limited budget resources and the need to improve their efficiency. The purpose of the research is to model the financial efficiency of budget expenditures in the context of categorical and targeted social transfers and to substantiate directions for their optimization. The methodological basis of the study is formed by economic and mathematical methods, in particular correlation and regression analysis, which is applied to assess the impact of social transfer components on the formation of total budget expenditures and to determine their financial efficiency. The results indicate that categorical social transfers play a dominant role in shaping total social expenditures and demonstrate a high level of consistency with them. In contrast, targeted transfers show limited integration into the budget financing system, indicating structural imbalances in the allocation of financial resources. A discrepancy between the theoretically higher efficiency of targeted transfers and the actual dominance of categorical payments has been identified. Directions for increasing the financial efficiency of budget expenditures in the context of social transfers are proposed, taking into account the realities of the war economy, among which the priority is the gradual transformation of the structure of social expenditures in the direction of increasing the share of targeted transfers. The scientific novelty lies in the development of approaches to assessing the financial efficiency of social transfers based on econometric modeling and in substantiating the priority of targeted transfers as a more effective instrument of budget policy. The practical significance of the results lies in their applicability for optimizing the structure of social expenditures, improving targeting mechanisms, and increasing the efficiency of public resource allocation.
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