State financial security: Comprehensive analysis of its impact factors

Abstract

Ensuring the financial security of a country is one of the main tasks in formulating strategic objectives for the development of the financial system. Given that each country has its own characteristics in terms of the financial architecture, which manifests itself in its model, in the state of public finances and their importance for the economic development of a country, etc., the assessment of the financial security status will have its differences not only in the list of indicators, but also in the structural relations among them. Therefore, this study assessed the level of financial security, carried out its structural analysis, and identified the factors influencing it, using the case of Poland and Ukraine. Based on data for 2007–2018, the countries’ financial security is analyzed by four indicator groups that characterize the development level of financial institutions, monetary market, stock market and public finance. Using Harrington’s Desirability Function, an integrated financial security indicator was created for each country. Both countries showed a positive trend to increase the level of financial security, while the value of the financial security indicator corresponds to the desired, satisfactory, level. At the end of the analyzed period, Poland showed a high level of financial security. For factor analysis, the factors were selected that characterized Freedom from corruption, Property rights, Fiscal freedom, Business freedom, Labor freedom, Trade freedom, and Investment freedom. As a result, it was found that, Freedom from corruption and Business freedom had the greatest impact on the level of financial security in Poland, while Business freedom and Trade freedom were the most influential on the financial security of Ukraine.