INTEGRATED STATISTICAL ASSESSMENT AND ECONOMETRIC MODELLING OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE REGIONS OF UZBEKISTAN

This article develops an integrated framework for assessing regional business development in Uzbekistan by combining a multidimensional relative index with panel econometric modelling. The empirical analysis uses 22 financial, production, resource, investment, employment, and export indicators for 14 regions in 2023–2024, together with a balanced panel comprising 210 region-year observations for 2010–2024. The regional index is constructed using z-standardised indicators and is employed to compare dispersion, changes in regional rankings, and the relative positions of regions. The standard deviation of the index increased from 0.2963 in 2023 to 0.3527 in 2024, while the interquartile range rose from 0.1970 to 0.3367, indicating increasing regional differentiation. For the longer period, a logarithmic fixedeffects model examines the relationship between business output and investment, construction, household income, employment, and exports. The largest conditional elasticities are associated with household income and employment. The findings demonstrate that a single regional ranking is insufficient for policy evaluation: relative indices should be interpreted alongside absolute indicators, structural characteristics, and econometric diagnostics. The proposed framework can support differentiated regional policies and more transparent monitoring of business development.