DIGITAL ECONOMY: FINDING APPROACHES TO STRUCTURING

Introduction. Today, the lack of a universally recognized understanding of the essence and structure of the digital economy, its inherent types of economic activity, is a fundamental scientific problem. Due to its unresolved nature, the state authorities of countries are not always able to obtain accurate data on the results of the functioning of national digital economies and develop effective solutions to stimulate their development and increase their impact on economic growth. Materials and methods. The following methods were used in this study: analysis, synthesis, systematization, generalization, and comparison. The study's theoretical basis is the scientific works of foreign and Ukrainian scholars. Results and discussion. The article clarifies the macrostructural levels of digital economy analysis. Their list, which includes the ICT sector, “narrow” and “wide” digital economies, is complemented by a new level of – basic digital economy, which ensures the production of both ICT and digital goods and services. Compared to the ICT sector, it more accurately reflects the dynamics of "narrow" and "broad" digital economies, which are forms of its development. This methodical approach to macrostructural analysis somewhat expanded the scientific understanding of the national digital economy. It is proposed to be considered as a set of types of economic activity that ensure the production, circulation and consumption of digital and ICT goods and services in the national economy. Conclusions. The study of the essence, structure and set of types of economic activity inherent in the digital economy made it possible to obtain new scientific results. Among them, one of the most important is the assessment on the example of Ukraine of the error arising from various methods of determining the size of the national digital economy. In particular, the calculations showed that in 2021 in Ukraine, the share of basic digital economy industries was 5.6% in the structure of gross added value, and the ICT– sector was 3.6. These data indicate that more than a third of the goods and services produced by the domestic digital economy will remain unaccounted for if the volume indicator of the ICT sector, and not the basic digital economy, is used to estimate their output. They also confirm the infallibility of the hypothesis put forward in the study that the accuracy of measuring the size of the national digital economy can be significantly increased if an indicator of the volume of the basic digital economy, and not the ICT sector, is used in the methodology of its assessment.