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Kazakhstan, a country with relatively strong economic growth, significant natural resources and low population density, shares borders with countries of low economic growth, high poverty and unemployment. The lack of a coherent strategy for labour migration and a large informal sector have contributed towards a situation where large numbers of low-skilled migrants are working in breach of Kazakhstan's minimum labour standards. There is also evidence of significant incidences of unfree-or forced-labour. This paper considers the living and working conditions of Central Asian migrants in Kazakhstan and the applicability of the trafficking framework to their situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is often said that economic growth promotes human development but it is not always true that economic growth automatically results in poverty reduction and human development.This paper illustrates that policies play an important role in establishing this link. It examines the differences between Kazakhstan's and Kyrgyzstan's health policy and spending to understand factors explaining why two countries with a significant economic difference do not differ in their health outcomes for children. In doing so, it explores the main health policies of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and their implications for children's lives from a capability perspective built within a concern of human development more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which investigated the relevance of new rail corridors and the potential integration of Kazakhstan into the new transcontinental trade routes. Topics covered include the strengths and constraints of the country, the challenges of logistics development in the country, and the exploitation of natural resources in Kazakhstan.

Despite robust, and much touted, growth, Kazakhstan's economic system enjoys only tepid support among large swathes of the population and is viewed by many as neither fair nor legitimate. Extreme juxtapositions of new wealth and new poverty against a historic background of economic and social egalitarianism combine to make this a potent and combustible issue. Women, ethnic Slavs, the poor, people in urban areas most afflicted by post-Soviet de-industrialisation, those who feel they have lost out in the transition to a market economy, and those who are pessimistic about their financial prospects are more likely to question the legitimacy of the current economic system. Because scepticism about the distributive system contributes to political and social strife, these findings provide grounds for concern about Kazakhstan's long-term stability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Kazakhstan became a petro-state in the 1990s, after signing important oil production agreements with several transnational companies. In recent years, Kazakhstan's government has imposed the revision of former agreements on these corporations. This article contends that said revision has allowed the national players, government and the state oil company, to extend rent-seeking, but that the changes have not been deep enough to attain national oil empowerment. This means that national players do not control the oil cycle - from upstream to export trade - and are unable to secure continued expansion in the oil sector. Both key issues remain in the hands of the foreign companies, although their prominence has diversified following the entry of large Chinese and Russian companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically examines the relationship between growth, poverty, and income inequality in 10 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries between 1991 and 2006 with a special focus given to the three most successful economies within this group: Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. Largely, by means of panel techniques, results support the pro-poor growth hypothesis as the author confirms that countries' increased aggregate income contributes to poverty reduction. Moreover, some evidence has been found supporting a Kuznets' type inverted-U shape amongst the 10 CIS countries, once a number of variables have been controlled for. The author found that initial conditions (particularly, initial inequality) play an important role in explaining differences in growth patterns. Oil-producing/exporting countries have benefited from that condition in terms of reducing domestic inequalities. Finally, no statistically significant causal relation was found between real gross domestic product and poverty or between real gross domestic product and inequality (in both causality directions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing data from the 2007 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Inequality Survey, I identify and compare the determinants of economic justice attitudes in two formerly similar majority-Muslim nations that are now distinguished almost exclusively by their dissimilar economic circumstances following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Kazakhstan, where the economy is growing rapidly, the important factors predicting economic egalitarianism are connected to people's perceived ability to do well in the future. In contrast, in Kyrgyzstan, which has stagnated in the post-Soviet era, people's immediate economic vulnerability predicts egalitarianism, while their economic prospects are irrelevant. Finally, the effect of several factors on support for egalitarianism appears impervious to the prevailing economic winds: religious orthodoxy, the urban vs. rural divide, and membership in a historically privileged ethnic group. These patterns reflect both the commonalities in the two countries' histories, demography, and religion and their divergent economic trajectories since the collapse of the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In neighbouring countries like Russia and Kazakhstan, resource nationalism that may look similar to outside observers has a different character and is driven by different circumstances in each state. To assess the underlying nature of state-centric models of resource-led development in the two post-Soviet states, we contrast recent state interventions into their respective resource sectors. In Russia, heightened state involvement in the resource sectors, including oil and gas pipeline networks, is characterised mainly by political goals, whereas Kazakhstan's resource nationalism is primarily motivated by economic goals. More specifically, Russia leverages its energy sector to achieve geopolitical objectives and domestic political stability. By contrast, Kazakhstan seeks widely dispersed economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on differences in the economic reform processes of the transition economies of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It highlights the influence of Soviet-era conditions on the economic transition in these countries citing their differences in the level of integration with Soviet-era Russia, in their pursuit of economic reforms and the level of turnover of the former Soviet elite.