ӘЛЕУМЕТТІК-ЭКОНОМИКАЛЫҚ ЖӘНЕ ҚҰҚЫҚ ҒЫЛЫМДАРЫ - СОЦИАЛЬНО-ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ И ЮРИДИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ - SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND LEGAL SCIENCES · UDC 334.722 · English
REGIONAL NEW-FIRM FORMATION IN UZBEKISTAN AFTER THE 2017 REFORMS: PERSISTENCE IN SCALE, CONVERGENCE IN INTENSITY, AND RECOMPOSITION TOWARD TRADE
Abstract
Uzbekistan's 2017 economic liberalisation was followed by a roughly threefold increase in new-business registration, but whether that national surge reshaped the regional structure of entrepreneurship has not been tested. This study builds a 224-observation region-year panel (14 regions, 2010-2025) from the National Statistics Committee's Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organisations and estimates beta-convergence on two pre-registered outcomes: new firms per year (levels) and new firms per 1,000 registered enterprises (formation intensity). On the pre-registered intensity outcome, convergence is robust: beta = -0.990 (HC3 SE 0.367, p = 0.007, R-squared = 0.537), negative in 14 of 14 leave-one-out fits. On the levels outcome the estimate is negative but inconclusive-underpowered (beta = -0.235, p = 0.053), with a minimum detectable effect of 0.311 that exceeds the observed coefficient. Rank-stability analysis resolves the apparent tension: the absolute ordering of regions is frozen (Spearman rho = +0.93), while the intensity ordering reshuffles completely (rho = -0.02) and its dispersion compresses. Sectoral decomposition shows the boom was compositionally narrow: wholesale and retail trade gained 9.07 percentage points of share and accounts for 41.5 per cent of the national surge, while construction, manufacturing and finance lost share. The post-2017 period is therefore best described as persistence in scale, convergence in intensity, and recomposition toward trade. No causal attribution to the reforms is claimed.
Keywords: new firm formation, regional convergence, Uzbekistan, entrepreneurship, economic reform
How to cite
Rambergenov R. REGIONAL NEW-FIRM FORMATION IN UZBEKISTAN AFTER THE 2017 REFORMS: PERSISTENCE IN SCALE, CONVERGENCE IN INTENSITY, AND RECOMPOSITION TOWARD TRADE // Central Asian Scientific Journal. – 2026. – No. 4(32), Vol. 1. – Pp. 107–115.