صادرات انرژی، جهانی شدن و رشد اقتصادی : مطالعه موردی قفقاز جنوبی

We examine the effect of energy exports and globalization on economic growth using the bias-corrected least square dummy variable model in a panel of five South Caucasus countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Turkey) over the period of 1990–2009. We provide evidence that higher energy exports and globalization expand economic growth. Also, we find that higher economic, political and social integrations are associated with higher growth rates. Furthermore, we find that greater energy exports contribute to higher growth rates in the course of globalization. In particular, higher energy exports lead to higher growth rates in the period of increasing economic and political integration. We therefore emphasize that energy exports, global integration, and their interaction effects are important determinants of economic growth in the South Caucasus region.

The South Caucasus is valuable due to its location at the crossroad between Europe and Asia, and, more importantly, it possesses important supply of energy (de Haas et al., 2006). Thus, the global integration of the South Caucasus region into the world market is significant for economic growth in these countries (Wittich and Maas, 2009). In this context, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have constructed the energy transportation routes in the South Caucasus. In particular, the development of Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum gas pipeline and the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railroad links Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Europe and Asia (Petersen, 2007). Hence, these energy transport routes have shaped the energy supply security in the South Caucasus.1Elkind (2005: 39), for example, notes that the energy transit corridor has contributed to a “critical infrastructure link between once-distant Caspian energy deposits and global markets, but also as a source of greater supply diversity, a symbol of independence, a proof of cooperation among neighbors, a standard for the performance of a global industry, and a tool for economic development.”2 Furthermore, Blatchford (2005: 131) suggests that the energy transport routes have developed a sustainable investment program, namely, “the community investment program, the environmental investment program, and the regional sustainable development program” in the host countries. Nevertheless, the development of the energy transit routes has circumvented Armenia and Russia. More specifically, the construction of these energy transportation corridors has created alternative energy supply to the Russian energy transit routes (Kalicki, 2001), and, also, excluded Armenia from foremost local development projects in the South Caucasus region (Cornell et al., 2005). These events have shaped the economic, social and political integration in the South Caucasus. According to Correljé and van der Linde (2006: 535), the disintegration of the former Soviet Union has contributed to more transport countries, and, also, increased the “political and commercial risk of projects” in the region. The supply of energy and global integration has important implications for long-term economic growth in the South Caucasus. As such, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of energy exports and globalization on economic growth employing annual data over the 1990–2009 period covering five South Caucasus countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Turkey. Moreover, we examine the interaction effects of energy exports and global integration as these two forces may possibly interact in influencing economic growth across countries. More specifically, higher energy exports may potentially lead to higher growth rates particularly in the period of increasing global integration in the South Caucasus region. We develop two models in the empirical analysis: a panel 5-country model (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia and Russia) and a panel 3-country model (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey). We group the countries into two models in order to provide greater understanding on the relationship between energy exports, global integration and economic growth in the South Caucasus. It is especially imperative to investigate a panel 3-country model given that the energy transportation routes have circumvented Armenia and Russia in the South Caucasus region. We attempt to discover differences, if any, on the effect of energy exports and globalization on economic growth in a panel 3-country model and a panel 5-country model. We use the bias-corrected least square dummy variable (LSDVC) model developed by Kiviet, 1995 and Kiviet, 1999, Judson and Owen (1999), Bun and Kiviet (2003), and, more recently, Bruno (2005), who proposed a methodology to approximate the small sample bias of the LSDV estimator, constructed this estimator and demonstrated that the LSDVC estimator is more efficient and robust compared to numerous instrumental variable estimators in dynamic panel data models, including LSDV, first differenced and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators. A useful feature of the LSDVC model is that it is especially appropriate for small samples (Bruno, 2005). To anticipate our results, we find that higher energy exports and globalization expand economic growth. We also provide evidence that higher economic, political and social integrations are associated with higher growth rates. Furthermore, we find that greater energy exports contribute to higher growth rates in the course of globalization. More specifically, higher energy exports lead to higher growth rates in the period of increasing economic and political integration. Overall, our findings are consistent in the 3-country and 5-country models. We conduct a number of robustness tests. The results from the robustness tests continue to support our earlier findings. We therefore emphasize that energy exports, global integration, and their interaction effects are important determinants of economic growth in the South Caucasus region. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we provide a general background based on the literature. Section 3 explains the econometric methodology used in the empirical analysis, while Section 4 describes the data. Section 5 presents the empirical results for the 3-country and 5-country models, and conducts a number of robustness tests. The final section summarizes the major findings.

We examine the relationship between energy exports, globalization and economic growth using the LSDVC approach over the 1990–2009 period in a panel of five South Caucasus countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia and Russia. We develop two models in the empirical analysis: a panel 3-country model (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey) and a panel 5-country model (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia and Russia) to provide greater understanding on the relationship between energy exports, global integration and economic growth. Our results provide evidence that energy exports, globalization and their interaction effects are significant determinants of economic growth in the South Caucasus region. In particular, we provide evidence that higher energy exports and globalization are associated with higher growth rates. We also find that greater economic, political, and social integrations expand economic growth. Moreover, our findings suggest that higher energy exports contribute to higher growth rates in the period of rising global integration. More specifically, higher energy exports lead to higher growth rates in the period of increasing economic and political integration in the South Caucasus region. These findings are consistent in the panel 3-country and panel 5-country models. In addition, all these results are robust to the inclusion of variety of control variables in the empirical analysis. The supply of energy and global integration has been a fundamental issue in the South Caucasus. This is because a break to energy exports may considerably impair the activities in the local economy. Lesbirel (2004: 7), for example, argues that the interruption to energy supply corresponds to a “major threat to nations that have few domestic resources and rely heavily on external supplies of energy sources.” As such, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have constructed these energy transportation routes, which, in turn, have shaped energy supply security in the region. To sum, we emphasize that energy exports, global integration, and their interaction effects are important determinants of economic growth in the South Caucasus.