IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nos/voprec/y2026id6160.html

Structural change and economic growth in Central Asia

Author

Listed:
  • V. E. Gimpelson

  • A. V. Chernyavskiy

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between economic growth and structural change in Central Asian countries countries from 2000 to 2024. Large gaps in labor productivity across sectors in these countries drive labor reallocation between economic activities. The reallocation of labor toward more productive sectors, along with intra-sectoral productivity growth, can contribute to overall economic growth. We apply a simple shift-share decomposition methodology to evaluate the contributions of these components to economic growth across four Central Asian, using data from the UN Statistics Division and the ILO database. Our analysis indicates that sectoral labor productivity growth was the primary driver of aggregate productivity growth in the region. Structural transformation accounted for 13—17% of total productivity growth in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, whereas its impact in Uzbekistan was minimal. Finally, we discuss the reasons for limited structural change and the main barriers to labor mobility in the region.

Suggested Citation

  • V. E. Gimpelson & A. V. Chernyavskiy, 2026. "Structural change and economic growth in Central Asia," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    • Handle: RePEc:nos:voprec:y:2026:id:6160
    DOI: 10.32609/0042-8736-2026-10-68-93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.vopreco.ru/jour/article/viewFile/6160/2880
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.32609/0042-8736-2026-10-68-93?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nos:voprec:y:2026:id:6160. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: NEICON (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.vopreco.ru .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.