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Growing disparities in wealth, well-being, and access to services in Kazakhstan have raised serious concerns among policymakers, especially since the January 2022 protests. This paper evaluates these regional inequalities and presents the findings from Kazakhstan’s inaugural well-being survey. The survey, based on global best practices, involves 4,032 face-to-face interviews with a diverse sample across all 20 regions, ensuring representation. The resulting indices—the Subjective Well-Being Index and the Regional Well-Being Index—highlight both within-region and between-region disparities. Notably, the indices reveal significant variations in well-being, with certain regions reporting notably lower satisfaction levels across dimensions like trust in institutions, satisfaction with financial and housing conditions, health care and education quality, and personal security perceptions.

During the past 10 years, the oil market has been very unpredictable and volatile, which created uneasy conditions for market participants. The remedy of increasing oil prices is considered as a positive factor for the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan as an oil-exporting country. Using structural decomposition of vector autoregression (VAR), this study aims to examine how the whole financial system in Kazakhstan is depending on oil prices. The results suggest that the strongest factor affecting the stock index is aggregate demand, and the impact of oil production shocks on the equity market is, on average, insignificant. Such shocks can be discounted while a fall in oil prices affects financial conditions as a whole, damaging the solvency of Kazakhstan, an oil-exporting country. With the positive shock of aggregate demand, the stock market index tends to rise. There is also an effect of oil price volatility on changes in currency value, which also influences the financial situation of the country. Moreover, oil-exporting countries such as Kazakhstan can secure and support their economies with the help of “stable aggregate demand”. The focus on Kazakhstan as one of the oil-producing countries is interesting for at least two reasons. Importantly, oil-exporting countries supply oil to really strong countries concentrating on manufacturing and other industries. Besides, this study provides useful insights for countries with similar economic conditions, including similar stock market development.

Kazakhstan has shown an increase in its offshore oil and gas (O&G) prospection and operation activities in the Caspian Sea since 1998, so far with a limited number of operators, but which is about to increase significantly. This is of concern, considering that the environmental and industrial safety regulatory framework is still inadequate for the prevention of pollution from a large number of operators in a very sensitive aquatic ecosystem. This paper reports on the results of a study undertaken for the European Commission Tacis programme aimed at enhancing the environmental and industrial safety regulatory framework in order to align it with EU and international best practice. Based on a comprehensive analysis of applicable international standards and regulations, as well as those of Kazakhstan, ten issues are identified which require urgent attention. These issues are discussed and recommendations made on how to address them in order to improve the regulatory system.

It is important to consider the local people’s evaluation in increasing the effectiveness of the sustainable planning process in urban system planning. In this work, the sustainability of urban system planning in Shu city of Kazakhstan is evaluated according to the defined dimensions, which play a key role in determining the population’s living standard, and the indicators of each dimension are compared. The data are obtained mainly through the household questionnaire survey, field observations, in depth interviews, and focus group discussion. In total, 832 representative respondents were surveyed with five-point Likert scale questions in this paper. The study used 42 indicators based on six dimensions: environmental, social, cultural, economic, religious/spiritual, and institutional dimensions. The results of this analysis show that the sustainability level of urban system planning in Shu city is at a low level in all six dimensions. The results of the indicator analysis show that the people of this region are generally not satisfied with the solution of some environmental, social, and economic problems in Shu city. At the same time, residents rated the indicators of institutional stability as better, on the contrary, they rated cultural and religious/spiritual indicators relatively high. As a result, we initially asserted that the sustainability of the urban system planning in Shu city is not satisfactory considering the existing possibilities. To eliminate this shortcoming, the authorities responsible for planning the urban system should jointly develop a project policy for sustainable development with all interested parties.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seems to have exhibited its goodwill by aiming to integrate its neighbors peacefully and cooperatively into joint economic prosperity; nevertheless, there are various concerns about the implications of China’s mounting influence in Central Asia. This article attempts to compare the results of several small-scale surveys conducted among university students in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, so as to get a glimpse of local perceptions in Central Asia on the growing Chinese influence in their countries. Our primary survey analysis shows that Kazakhstani respondents tend to believe China has the biggest influence in Central Asia, while Kyrgyzstani respondents believe that Russia outperforms China in status in the region. However, both Kyrgyzstani and Kazakhstani respondents believe that Russia’s influence will largely decline and be overtaken by China in the next decade. Although our respondents have some awareness of China’s presence in their countries and an understanding of China’s influence, they do not consider the Chinese development model a suitable one for their country. China’s much advocated Belt and Road Initiative has not seemed to reach the radar of the young respondents included in this study.

The present industrial revolution in modern history, called Industry 4.0, completely changes the vision and processes of modern production and makes it more efficient, high quality, and potentially more profitable. The spreading of Industry 4.0 across all industries did not leave behind the oil and gas sector. More developed countries such as Norway, where the oil and gas industry plays a crucial role, have already initiated Industry 4.0 transformation and progressing toward achieving higher maturity levels. At the same time, developing countries such as Kazakhstan, where the oil and gas sector is also one of the most important industries, make their initial attempts towards Industry 4.0 but in a more cut-rate way. Therefore, this study aimed to conduct a maturity assessment of the oil and gas sectors of two countries, through a new Industry 4.0 readiness assessment model (RAM), developed exclusively for oil and gas companies. As a result, the model helped to identify the current maturity level of enterprises, strengths and weaknesses, and pinpoint country-specific patterns. Although the research focuses primarily on the upstream sector, the developed model and research results can also be extended to address the needs of the midstream and downstream sectors.

In this paper we study the natural resource curse by analyzing the cross-regional sample from Kazakhstan. Our focus is to understand if the institutional quality within the country explains the resource curse. Using the data for 14 regions in Kazakhstan between 2000 and 2010 and employing various panel data approaches, we find that the institutional quality is not a determinant of the resource curse as institution changes very slowly within the country over time. This statement surely contradicts with previous resource curse literatures that utilized cross-country sample counting the fact that institutions vary across countries. Instead here, we argue that the resource curse within the country arises as a result of commodity price volatility.

This study contributes to the literature by evaluating the ability of Altman’s Z”-score model to predict the economic distress of 12 Kazakh banks over the period 2008–2014. The original Z”-score model with a cut-off point implied by Altman (2005) produced a prediction accuracy ratio of 44.05% and correctly classifies 76.19% of the observations as an economically distressed group. This study then re-estimates the model using three approaches, namely, the “leave-one-out”, Direct, and Wilks’ methods, and identifies new, optimal cut-off points for the re-estimated models. The re-estimated models, together with the new, optimal cut-off points, improved the prediction accuracy ratio to 70% and correctly classified over 90% of the observations originally assigned to the economically distressed group. The results imply that the Kazakh banking regulator and other market participants could use Altman’s Z”-score model to detect economically distressed banks.

This chapter addresses the efficiency of financing mechanisms and tools of the state implemented in Kazakhstan through the national small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development institute Entrepreneurship Development Fund (hereafter Damu). This study considers the data on Damu financing provided to SMEs during 2005–2019 and the relationship of this financing to the overall contribution of SMEs to the GDP of the country during this period. This chapter analyzes whether Damu’s activities promoted the economic development of the country and whether Damu is overall financially efficient as an organization, how Damu has promoted startup businesses, and the factors by which microfinancing affects economic development in Kazakhstan. The results indicate that Damu has been successful, as shown by the number of SMEs financed and the number of jobs created, to reduce regional disparity in financing SMEs. The results also show that many small firms cannot grow into medium-sized enterprises in a competitive market, even with government support. Public financial institutions are recommended to help SMEs improve their management quality and to reduce information asymmetry between loan providers and clients so SMEs can grow with a long-term strategy in a competitive market.

In 2010, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan formed the Eurasian Customs Union and imposed the Russian tariff as the common external tariff of the Customs Union. This resulted in almost doubling the external average tariff of the more liberal Kazakhstan. Russia has benefited from additional exports to Kazakhstan under the protection of the higher tariffs in Kazakhstan. But estimates reveal that the tariff changes resulted in substantial transfers from Kazakhstan to Russia as importers in Kazakhstan now purchase lower quality or higher priced Russian imports that are protected under the tariff umbrella of the common external tariff. Transfers from the Central Asian countries to Russia were the reason the Eurasian Economic Community (known as EurAsEC) failed, so this bodes badly for the ultimate success of the Eurasian Customs Union. What is different, however, is that the Eurasian Customs Union and its associated Common Economic Space aim to reduce non-tariff barriers and improve trade facilitation, and also to allow the free movement of capital and labor, liberalize services, and harmonize some regulations. Estimates by my colleagues and I show that if substantial progress could be made in trade facilitation and reducing non-tariff barriers, this could make the Customs Union positive for Kazakhstan and other potential Central Asian members. Unfortunately, so far the Customs Union has made these matters worse. But Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization will eventually substantially reduce the transfers from Kazakhstan to Russia. Progress with non-tariff barriers and trade facilitation, however, will take a strong political commitment from Russia which we have not yet seen. But if that Russian political leadership is forthcoming, the Eurasian Customs Union could succeed where its predecessor failed.