Despite the fact that a comprehensive analysis of digitalization processes in the EU member states has been carried out, the impact of a country’s digitalization level on the risks of poverty and social exclusion requires further investigation. The purpose of the paper is to verify a hypothesis that a higher level of national digitalization provides positive trends in reducing the risks of poverty and social exclusion for the population. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) was used to evaluate the digitalization levels of the EU countries. The indicator “People at risk of poverty or social exclusion” (AROPE) was applied to estimate the poverty level. As the main research methods, the authors used a comparative and correlation analysis with respect to the above-mentioned indicators, as well as the Monte Carlo method in order to evaluate the probability of a change in the indicator “population at risk of poverty or social exclusion” in 2021. The EU countries with higher digitalization levels have a lower percentage of the population at risk of poverty and social exclusion. However, a higher digitalization level of the EU member states does not provide an accelerated risk reduction of poverty and social exclusion. Statistical calculations with respect to the entire population of these countries mainly indicate reverse processes. At the same time, a further reduction of poverty and social exclusion level is less probable in the countries with a higher level of digitalization. For relatively poor segments of the population (the 1st and 2nd quintiles by income) in the EU member states, the level of digitalization does not play a significant role. For relatively wealthy segments of the population (the 3rd and 4th quintiles by income) the authors noticed a pattern: the higher the level of digitalization is, the lower the risk of poverty and social exclusion becomes. A pairwise comparison of countries with initially similar AROPE values showed that in most cases (3 out of 5), the countries with higher levels of digitalization showed a more significant reduction in poverty and social exclusion. However, the probability of further positive changes in this area is higher for the countries with a lower level of digitalization.

The article discusses the dynamics of economic development based on the level of digitalization of the countries. Economic development is evaluated through the dynamics of GDP changes. Digitalization level is evaluated through the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which is calculated on a regular basis by the European Commission. Object of study – 28 EU‑member countries. The hypothesis of the investigation: a high level of digitalization leads to an acceleration of economic growth on national level. This hypothesis did not find any statistically significant confirmation. Thus, we can conclude that the level of the economy digitalization at the present stage of development of technologies and institutions in the EU countries does not have a decisive effect on the rate of economic growth.

Digitization and climate neutrality are among the development priorities of EU member states. This causes wide scientific and practical interest in the description of these processes, including their mutual influence. In this case, digitalization is a factor, and climate neutrality, largely characterized by green-house gas emissions, is the answer. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to assess the impact of digitalization on greenhouse gas emissions using the example of EU member states. The scientific novelty of the obtained results is the proposition of hypotheses, the proof of which will allow us to estimate the level of influence of the digitalization process on the volume of greenhouse gases per capita of the EU member states using economic and mathematical tools. It is justified that the direct impact of digitalization on the level of greenhouse gas emissions cannot be considered significant and statistically significant. The impact of digitalization on the processes of reducing greenhouse gas emissions with a delay of 1 to 4 years has not been identified. Considering the low degree of correlation-regression dependence between greenhouse gas emissions and the level of digitization, it can be assumed that either (1) other factors have a significant impact (list), or (2) the observation horizon is “captured” only by the part of the Kuznets curve, which corresponds to the descending part parabolas. Consequently, the conducted analysis shows that there are serious reasons to believe that digitalization is not the main (leading) factor in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This necessitates further research with the inclusion of a wide range of variables (related to regulatory policy, tax policy, investment policy, the culture of consumption) in the model.

The accelerated development of smart manufacturing is taking place all over the world, but the definition of the theoretical foundations of its stimulation, as well as the unequivocal understanding of "smart manufacturing" concept still has an untapped research potential. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to determine the theoretical foundations of stimulating the development of smart manufacturing in Ukraine based on local protectionism. The systematization and arrangement of concepts related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) allows not only to clarify the concept of "smart manufacturing", but also to distinguish the concepts of "smart production", "smart maintenance", "smart manufacturing” and define the place of the latter in the system of interconnected concepts. Smart manufacturing is a part of smart production that concerns the production of tangible goods through the use of Industry 4.0 technologies embodied in smart services. Based on the definition and role of smart manufacturing, it becomes clear that smart manufacturing cannot exist without “ordinary” manufacturing, as well as conceptual directions for stimulating the development of smart manufacturing are distinguished, relating to: (1) sphere of smart services, generated by Industry 4.0 technologies; (2) sphere of smart production; (3) sphere of smart distribution; (4) sphere of smart exchange; (5) sphere of smart consumption; (6) sphere of production of smart products by smart manufacturing; (7) sphere of production of smart products by "ordinary" manufacturing; (8) sphere of production of "ordinary" products by smart manufacturing; (9) sphere of production of "ordinary" products by "ordinary" manufacturing. Given the reduction of national manufacturing in Ukraine, the development of services to ensure the smartization of manufacturing actually insures the smartization of foreign manufacturing that produces goods that are then imported into Ukraine. Therefore, it is advisable to stimulate the development of smart manufacturing in several directions at the same time: (1) stimulation of the manufacturing as a whole; (2) stimulating the development of smart services and tools for smartization of manufacturing; (3) stimulating the introduction of smart services in manufacturing; (4) stimulation of demand for products produced by the domestic smart manufacturing. There are two centers of smartization of manufacturing in Ukraine: (1) traditional manufacturing, as it invests in its own smartization; (2) a small business that creates smart services. The state, which in recent years has turned into an important player in the field of IT services, currently is not working purposefully on the smartization of manufacturing. In Ukraine there is also a contradiction between the need to harmonize the domestic economy with the EU market and the arrangement of favorable conditions for the development of smart manufacturing. This contradiction has the potential to be resolved on the basis of local protectionism theory through the expansion and improvement of the practice of applying special economic regimes (for instance, technology parks), and as well as the implementation of institutional and organizational solutions that simultaneously correspond to the provisions of both liberal and protectionist schools of economic theory.

The aim of the study is to substantiate the role and capabilities of the national digital strategy platform in the institutionalization of the strategic management process in Ukraine. The organizational and structural logic of the study is based on the ascent from the abstract (digital economy as an uncontested target image of the future and strategic management as a universal tool for organizing economic activity) to the concrete (the state of digitalization and strategic management in Ukraine), as well as on the dialectical triad (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). As a thesis, a positive analysis is given and the historical conditionality (determinism) of the digitalization of the economy is substantiated. It shows its local efficiency at the entrepreneurial level, as well as the fundamental role of goal-setting and strategizing from the standpoint of economic theory. At the stage of antithesis, a number of contradictions were revealed: (1) between the historically conditioned nature of digital platformization within the framework of economic laws and the modern basis of digitalization in the form of credit expansion; (2) between the effectiveness of digitalization at the micro level and the absence of its positive impact on social and economic development at the national level; (3) between the weak, but growing, platform economy of Ukraine and the dominance of vertical integration of national business in traditional spheres, which lead to the existence of orders of limited access and extractive institutions; (4) between the digitalization of the “public sector”, on the one hand, and the business and consumer (household) sectors, on the other; (5) between a theoretically grounded model of the strategizing process and its current position in Ukraine; (6) between a higher level of digitalization of the control object and the predominantly pre-digital level of the control subject. At the stage of synthesis, the potential of partial removal of these contradictions by improving the process of strategizing the development of the Ukrainian economy and its institutionalization using the national digital platform of strategizing is justified. The requirements for the architecture of the national digital strategy platform are substantiated, its blocks, key users and their roles are determined.

The purpose of the article is to define prospects and limitations of artificial intelligence as a core of in the new industrial revolution. The definition of the concept of AI in the scientific community remains the subject of heated debate. At the same time, in the regulatory and legal plane, a trend is being formed towards unification of the concept of AI. Based on the analysis conducted and literary sources, the following prospects for AI can be identified on theoretical and practical levels. On theoretical level: (1) alienation of tacit knowledge from the individual (employee and entrepreneur); (2) optimization of the planning system; (3) revision of the socialist-calculation debate; (4) decreasing information asymmetry. On practical level: (1) formation of new products and markets; (2) increasing labor and capital productivity; (3) massive creation of new jobs; (4) optimization of business processes; (5) opportunity for rapid growth for small businesses and startups. Limitations: (1) long-term structural unemployment; (2) inflated expectations from AI and, as a consequence, the possible formation of a speculative bubble in the global stock market; (3) energy consumption of AI; (4) outdated pre-AI corporate culture and regulatory environment. Further improvement of AI (including the transition from AI to AGI) and the expansion of its use can make a significant contribution to solving problems related to economic calculation and minimizing information asymmetry, and therefore optimizing transaction costs in the economy. AI, certainly acting as a locally useful tool at the level of individual enterprises and organizations, causes the acceleration of attracting funds to the stock market, which can lead to the formation of a bubble on global level. If this bubble bursts, expectations about the economic efficiency of AI will be revised, and some AI-related companies will experience significant margin reductions (perhaps losses and bankruptcies). But this, in turn, will initiate the next stage of AI development, will accelerate its transition from the current narrow specialization to the creation of full-fledged general artificial intelligence (artificial general intelligence), which has a greater potential to change the economy at all levels. As a result, AI will become established as the core of the new industrial revolution.