ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF MACROECONOMIC FACTORS ON INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN UZBEKISTAN: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Inclusive economic growth has become a central priority for Uzbekistan as the country consolidates its transition toward a market-oriented, structurally diversified economy, following the acceleration of institutional and economic reforms initiated. As aggregate output has expanded at a historically rapid pace, policymakers and international partners alike have increasingly recognized that conventional output-based measures of growth — most notably the rate of change of gross domestic product (GDP) — are insufficient indicators of genuine developmental success. GDP growth captures the scale of economic expansion but says little about how its benefits are distributed across households, sectors and regions. Consequently, aggregate expansion of GDP does not automatically translate into broad-based improvements in employment, household welfare, income distribution or regional equity; it may instead coexist with persistent structural unemployment, rising cost-of-living pressures, widening urban–rural disparities or a narrow concentration of gains in capital-intensive sectors. This distinction between the pace and the pattern of growth underlies the growing consensus, reflected in the theoretical and institutional literature reviewed below, that economic policy must be evaluated not only by how fast an economy grows but by how inclusively that growth is generated and shared.