ABSTRACT
Kazakhstan’s economy has been driven by an oil boom since the discovery of large new oilfi elds coincided with the upturn of world oil prices at the turn of the century. This chapter uses high-quality microeconomic data (the national survey of the expenditure of 12,000 households) to examine Kazakhstan’s experience. We assess the extent to which the benefi ts from the oil boom are retained in the oil-producing regions, or spread evenly across the national economy, or are concentrated in the main metropolitan centre, Almaty, which is geographically far from any oilfi elds but home to the country’s elite. We then analyse the data to determine the transmission mechanisms (higher wages, social transfers or informal income) from the oil boom to household expenditure.
