Assessment of the scope and depth of poverty in the context of analytical support for sustainable development policy in Ukraine

The article is devoted to the approbation of the tools for empirical assessment of the adequacy of the size and structure of household consumer expenditures to the requirements of sustainable development of the national economy. The authors also sought to assess the possibilities of expanding the participation of households in financing the development of the social sphere, increasing rates of human capital accumulation, and Ukraine’s approach to the trajectory of sustainable economic development. The theoretical background of the study created by «microeconomic development models», which were initiated by the works of E. Engel, and then became the basis for evaluating the state policy results, which operate with the change in the standard of living, the volume and structure of consumer spending, and the economic well-being of households. To assess the scale of poverty, two indicators proposed by the poverty assessment methodology are used: the share of households whose equivalent total average per capita income is less than the actual cost of living minimum and the average deficit (gap) of consumer spending of the «poor households» comparing with the size of the actual cost of living minimum. To assess the degree of concentration of consumer spending by Ukrainian households, the Herfindahl-Hirschman indices and Entropy indices were calculated. Empirical confirmation was obtained of the thesis that the economic mechanisms of household participation in the formation of preconditions and impulses for growth and development remain blocked, which makes foreign investments or state budget expenditures practically the only source of growth and development. But such a role of the state budget or external investments, which do not have a positive effect on the economic role of households, directly contradicts the principles of sustainable development: the concentration of sources of growth leads to the concentration of its benefits and blocks the overcoming of poverty.