Resource curse and economic policies of Kazakhstan

The purpose of this dissertation is to the study political, economic and socio-economic history of Kazakhstan in comparison to pre-independence period within the framework of the "natural resource-curse" thesis. The main argument of the study is that Kazakhstan, although endowed with vast mineral, oil and natural gas reserves, was unable to channel the rents obtained from natural resource exports to manufacturing industries during the first 25 years of its independence due to the phenomenon referred to as "natural resource curse." In this study, data pertaining to Kazakhstan was analyzed in a historical perspective in the light of the theoritical basis of the resource curse thesis and the results of studies previously conducted for different countries, including Kazakhstan. As a result, Kazakhstan could be described as a country whose economy is based on natural resources and in part on downstream industries, which process these resources such as metal processing, petrochemicals. It could be argued that most mechanisms put forward by the natural resource curse thesis were to a large extent valid for Kazakhstan. Dutch disease, falling economic growth, inability to diversify the economy, dependence of exports to natural resources, consolidation of energy and capital intensive production structure, low level of institutional quality and governance, insufficient investment in human capital were prevailing determinations for Kazakhstan.