Dutch Disease Perspective on Vegetable Exports in the Azerbaijan Economy

Abstract

Agriculture or agrarian sectors together with non-resource manufacturing can be the key drivers of non-mineral development among natural resource-rich countries. However, agricultural development lags behind the extractive industry which puts a big share of the labor force into an uncertain position and creates food security risks. In Azerbaijan, which is an oil-rich post-soviet country, details focus on individual exports like vegetable exports that have not been carried out against specific economic indicators such as the Extractives Dependence Index (EDI), the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER), etc. This paper is based on one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) and Tukey’s honest significance test (Tukey’s HSD test), as well as the Granger causality test. Our analysis shows that Azerbaijan’s dependency on natural resources (measured by the EDI) has a significant effect on the value of vegetable exports. Moreover, the Granger causality test revealed a one-side causal relationship from the REER and production costs to the vegetable exports, at a 10% significance level. Similarly, a unidirectional Granger causal relationship from crude oil prices to the REER, at a 1% significance level was found. Thus, our findings indicate that overall Dutch disease affects the Azerbaijan economy towards vegetable exports.