ASSESSMENT OF INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT SECURITY LEVEL OF EU COUNTRIES

The article proposes a toolkit for assessing the level of investment development security, which is based on the method of constructing multidimensional integrated indicators and tested on the example of EU countries. The developed toolkit is based on the following algorithm: firstly, it is proposed an integrated index of investment security, which structurally consists of two elements (subindices): an index of the investment development level and an index of the investment attractiveness level. The indicators that are proposed to be included in the index from various aspects characterize the development of investment activity on the one hand, and on the other hand determine the countries position in terms of the investment attractiveness level. Secondly, indicators are classified with using "max-min" method of normalization and linear aggregation of normalized indicators into the integrated index. According to this method, the obtained integrated indexes are given in percentage form (0;100). The higher the level of investment development security, the closer the integrated index will be to 100%. As a critical value, it is proposed to choose normalized estimates based on the average levels of single indicators, which will allow to classify countries according to the level of investment development security. Thirdly, ranking and classification of EU countries according to the level of investment development security and analysis of patterns and differentiation of distribution are conducted. Fourthly, it is presupposed conducting a factor analysis (using correlation-regression modeling tools), which will allow to determine the most important factors that form the appropriate level of investment development security and take them into account when forecasting the relevant indicators of the countries development. Based on the results of the calculation of integrated indices, it was determined that Luxembourg, UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Cyprus and Estonia are among the ten EU countries with the most stable investment development. The least stable from the point of view of investment development are Greece, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The calculation of the security index for the EU on average made it possible to divide the countries according to the level of investment development security into two groups: first one is the countries with a sufficient level (the index exceeds 30.98% according to 2020 data) - 15 EU countries (53.6%); second one is the countries with insufficient level (index less than 30.98%) – 13 countries or 46.3%. Luxembourg, Cyprus, Ireland, the Netherlands, Malta, UK, Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden have the highest estimates of the investment development level; the lowest are Lithuania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Poland. Unlike the integrated index, the values of this subcomponent are more differentiated. The index of differentiation between the country with the highest level (Luxembourg) and the country with the lowest level (Lithuania) is 17.9. The vast majority of EU countries have a high level of investment attractiveness, in particular 24 countries (85.7%) are investment attractive at a sufficient level to ensure the security of investment development. The TOP 10 EU countries with the highest integrated level of investment attractiveness include Denmark, UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Estonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland and Luxembourg.