Assessing Azerbaijan's Digital Transformation Profile Through the New Generation Economy Index 2025

Abstract

This paper examines Azerbaijan's position in the New Generation Economy Index 2025 (NGEI), a comparative framework covering 15 countries and ten sub-indexes. Rather than estimating causal effects, the index compares readiness-related dimensions with outcome-related dimensions and helps identify whether countries with relatively strong structural conditions also display stronger innovation, platform-based activity, and creative-economy results. Using the reported NGEI scores, the paper offers a diagnostic reading of Azerbaijan's profile. Azerbaijan scores 42.11 points and ranks 8th among 15 countries, with an input score of 34.12 and an output score of 8.00. The stronger dimensions are demographic capacity, skills, and education, while weaker results are recorded in innovation and the creative economy. Within this framework, the evidence indicates that outcome indicators lag behind enabling conditions. Although the index does not establish a single causal explanation, it highlights several areas that may warrant closer policy attention, including R&D commercialization, technology transfer, venture finance, export-oriented digital entrepreneurship, and ecosystem coordination.