METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF PROTECTION OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY IN THE CONDITIONS OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Abstract

This article presents a methodological approach to assessing the level of protection of the national economy in the context of digital transformation. It is demonstrated that the expanding use of digital technologies, the improvement of platform solutions, the intensification of data flows, the growing dependence of economic processes on digital infrastructure, and the increasing complexity of the external environment are changing not only the conditions under which the economic system operates but also the logic of its protection. It has been established that traditional approaches to assessing the state of the national economy no longer fully account for digital risks, technological dependence, institutional coherence, innovative capacity, and the system’s ability to adapt rapidly in the face of structural changes. The paper justifies the need to move from a fragmented analysis of individual indicators to a comprehensive assessment that combines classical macroeconomic parameters with digital-infrastructure, institutional, innovation-and-technology, and foreign economic characteristics. A sequence for assessing the level of protection of the national economy is proposed, covering the development of a system of indicators, their grouping by functional blocks, standardization, determination of weighting coefficients, calculation of an integrated indicator, and interpretation of the results. The study identifies macroeconomic, digital-infrastructure, institutional, innovation-and-technology, and foreign-economic assessment blocks, each of which reflects a distinct aspect of the economic system’s resilience and protection. It is proven that the proposed approach allows to increase the analytical validity of strategic decisions, timely identify critical vulnerabilities, monitor the dynamics of changes and form a holistic picture of the state of protection of the national economy. The practical significance of the results lies in the possibility of using the proposed approach for strategic planning, monitoring the state of the economy, identifying critical vulnerabilities, preparing management decisions and improving the state policy of digital development and protection of the national economy.