The dissertation is devoted to research of theoretical and practical aspects of national economic power as a determinant of developments in the global economy. The thesis defines conceptual foundations of economic power, its criteria and factors, assesses its distribution between countries, estimates the effects for international economic relations, and provides recommendations for participation of Ukraine in foreign economic activities allowing for its economic power.In the first section economic power is defined as the capacity of a country to use economic means in order to influence other economic entities and global economic trends, and to resist external pressure. Economic power is closely related to size of economy, national wealth, resource potential, competitiveness, development, economic security, sovereignty and stability. A multi-criteria typology of economic power is elaborated. The main types include hard economic power, which is based on the real economic resources of a country and efficiency of their use, and soft economic power, which relies on advantages of the national social and economic model and conformity of the national economic policies with the interests of the domestic and foreign individuals. The author proposes the notion of synchronization power and adaptivepower. The structural elements of the theoretical mechanism of using economic power include sources of the power, existence or absence of coercion, motivation for using force and forms of materialization (economic leadership, economic rivalry under competitive environment, expansion, exploitation, sanctions and economic wars).The second section describes the factors of hard and soft national economic power andtheirtransformation. Institutional foundations of national economic power include
38values, social and economic model, and institutional structure of the national and the global economies.There aredisproportions in the factors of economic power possessed by the main centers of the global economy.Theexisting national economic power estimation methods are reviewed.The author elaborated the national hard economic power index based on the adjusted net national income of a country,improved the methods based on infometric approach and suggested the method of estimating the domestic component of the soft economic power.The third section starts with the assessment of the current situation and trends in the global distribution of hard economic power.The global synchronization power centers and their spheres of influence are determined. There are estimates ofthe adaptive power of the countries within the system of integration agreements EU+, as well as the member states of the NAFTA, ASEAN and MERCOSUR. The infometric method and opinion polls method enabled to assess the imbalances in distribution of national soft economic power.There are also various attitudes of individuals towards the current situation and the economic development prospects in their countries.The section ends with the quantitative analysis of the interaction between the spheres of economic and soft influence of the global and regional powers.The fourth section reviews the effects of the asymmetries in the economic power distribution between countries for international trade, investment, financial, technological and migration relations. The robustness of the effects under the modern post-crisis recovery of the global economy is tested.The author provides policy recommendations for economies of various size considering optimization of foreign economic relations with the aim of economic development and reproductionof economic power. The difference in motivation and effects of trade and monetary integration for small and large economies is assessed. Finally the author provides a forecast of the EU economic union enlargement considering country size of the potential countries for accession under various economic growth scenarios.The fifth section starts with analyzing peculiarities of foreign economic relations of Ukraine as a medium-size economy. The analysis resulted in implications for tariff, investment, exchangerate and integration policies of Ukraine. The author provided a comparative analysis of the soft economic power of Ukraine and its neighbor countries, an assessment of the potential economic effect of disseminating positive information about the Ukrainianeconomy, and elaborated proposals for adaptation of the domestic business to the deficit of the national soft economic power.The section ends with the assessment of the motivation and effects of the economic conflict between Russia on the one hand and Western countries and Ukraine on the other hand. The author provides findings and recommendations about the prospects for Ukraine under the current system of economic powers.
