Lala Hamidova

In modern conditions, the one-sidedness in the economy of Azerbaijan makes it necessary to accelerate the diversification process of the country’s economy. From this point of view, the development of the non-oil sector in the country presents the main priority of the government’s economic policy in Azerbaijan. The purpose of the study is to investigate ways of ensuring the diversification of the national industries in Azerbaijan, which aims to move to a new economic growth model in modern conditions. The study analyzes the economy’s current state and export diversification level in Azerbaijan using the Herfindahl-Hirshman index. As a result of the analysis, the level of diversification in Azerbaijan’s economy and exports was found to be very low (in 2021, the Herfindahl-Hirshman index was 0.23 for the economy and 0.79 for exports). The findings indicate that cooperation between the state and business plays a significant role in increasing the diversification of the economy following the goals of sustainable development of Azerbaijan. On the other hand, it helps stimulate entrepreneurship development in the non-oil sector. One of the ways to solve existing problems in this area is to create Eximbanks to increase the country’s export capabilities of non-oil products. The study offers recommendations to speed up the process of diversification of the economy in Azerbaijan and increase its efficiency.

This study provides empirical evidence that CO₂ emissions from transport (total and by transport types) have an impact on countries’ logistics efficiency, both in general (Logistics Performance Index) and in terms of its individual indicators (volumes of freight transport (total and by transport types) and total investments in transport infrastructure). The aim is to empirically demonstrate the impact of CO₂ emissions from different modes of transport on the logistics efficiency of countries, specifically using data from 60 International Transport Forum (ITF) member countries. The Granger causality analysis, based on VAR modeling for six periods evaluated by the World Bank (2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018), demonstrates that in 50% of the countries, changes in CO₂ emissions from transport are the cause of the shifts in the Logistics Performance Index (increasing emissions can impede logistics efficiency). The sample was reduced to these countries for the regression modeling. Regression modeling (with fixed and random effects, Hausman test, for 2002–2021 on panel data for countries in which direct causality was confirmed) showed that a one-unit increase in total CO₂ emissions from transport (in general and in air transport) is associated with 0.12 and 0.21 decrease in total investments in transport infrastructure. An increase in road CO₂ emissions is associated with a 0.49 decrease in road freight transport (ton-km per thousand units of GDP). An increase in CO₂ rail emissions is associated with a 0.15 increase in total investments in transport infrastructure and a 0.12 increase in total freight transport.