On stability of linear neutral differential equations in the Hale form

We present new explicit exponential stability conditions for the linear scalar neutral equation with two variable coefficients and delays $$ (x(t)-a(t)x(g(t)))'=-b(t)x(h(t)), $$ where $|a(t)|<1$, $b(t)\geq 0$, $h(t)\leq t$, $g(t)\leq t$, in the case when the delays $t-h(t)$, $t-g(t)$ are bounded, as well as an asymptotic stability condition, if the delays can be unbounded.