Differentiation of Ukraine’s frontier territorial communities: the procedure and its application

Abstract

The relevance of social and economic differentiation among frontier territorial communities in Ukraine is substantiated, considering the current economic environment and political and security challenges. Methods of common economic analysis like comparing, grouping, means, and comprehensive assessment are applied. According to the research hypothesis, the availability of international border and control checkpoints has a decisive influence on the social and economic positions and future perspectives of frontier communities. Accordingly, frontier communities are differentiated into transit and isolated communities. A comparative analysis of specific statistical indicators of local budgets for communities located on the Ukrainian-Polish border of Lviv region is done. The applied statistical indicators are total budget expenditures, subsidies, the own incomes of communities, capital expenditures and their relation to total expenditures, costs for management over communities and their relation to total expenditures, and taxes and fees. It is concluded that transit communities have better indicators of local budgets as soon as the communities have a better economy, a well-developed transport industry, logistics, and infrastructure. Conclusively, the frontier communities develop unevenly and do not use the resources, assets, and advantages of a geographical location fully. The communities face challenges like too much emigration, loss of human capital, low incomes for local budgets, and others. Future perspectives for the development of frontier communities are determined, considering their capacities, assets, and various resources. Better solutions are to drive the participation of frontier communities in programs of cross-border cooperation, implement participatory projects between the communities, develop transport and logistics infrastructure, and diversify the rural economy, i.e., the agri-industry. The task is to balance the structure of the economy, meaning the number and capacity of retailers and manufacturers.