ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the recent economic performance of the energy-rich Islamic Caspian states of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Uzbekistan is included in Table 14.1. I compare and contrast the economic situations of the three FSU Caspian states and, to a lesser extent, Russia, since the crisis of August 1998, with special focus on the performance of their energy sectors.1
Their futures depend on the speedy development of those energy resources, how wisely the revenues are spent, and how successfully ‘Dutch disease’ – a phenomenon that occurs when an oil boom has negative effects on the non-oil sectors of a country’s economy – is avoided.
