Abstract:

Despite the importance of combating money laundering and terrorist financing, there is still no single methodology for determining the extent amount of money laundering, based on the statistical information provided by the public financial monitoring authorities, since a large part of these financial flows is still outside the official statistics. The aim of the study is to develop methodological bases for determining the amount of money laundering through the real sector of economy, state and local budgets, and the segment of financial intermediaries. While determining the amount of money laundering, authors also have taken into account the level of shadow economy and indicators of quality and efficiency of state regulation of the national economy. The amount of money laundering in the country was determined using the Minkowski metric. The information base for the paper was data from the State Audit Service of Ukraine and the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine. The paper presents the results of an empirical analysis concerning measurement of money laundering in Ukraine, which showed that the lowest level of money laundering was recorded in 2007; during 2008-2009 there was a slightly increase in the amount of money laundering as a result of the activation of destructive processes both in the global financial system and in the national economy; 2010-2013 can be considered a period of post-crisis stabilization and, accordingly, a slight fluctuation in the amount of money laundering, while the intensification of the military-political conflict in Ukraine again intensified the increasing of money laundering with the highest level in 2014. Thus, the correspondence of the trend of volatility of the calculated amount of money laundering to the real political and economic processes in Ukraine confirms the adequacy of the developed approach to its estimation.  The methodological approach made it possible to comprehensively evaluate both implicit and explicit flows of money laundering and create an effective information base for evaluating the effectiveness of anti-money laundering instruments in the context of ensuring economic security in the country. Further scientific research requires the forecast the amount of money laundering in Ukraine. The results of the research can be useful for governments in order to adequately respond to destabilizing factors in the national economy.