Economic Growth, Tourism, and Energy Consumption in a Resource-Dependent Economy: Evidence from Kazakhstan

Understanding the determinants of economic growth remains a central issue for resource-dependent economies seeking to achieve sustainable development and economic diversification. In this context, Kazakhstan represents a particularly relevant case due to its heavy reliance on energy resources and its increasing emphasis on tourism development as a potential diversification strategy. This study investigates the validity of the tourism-led growth hypothesis and the energy-led growth hypothesis in Kazakhstan using annual data covering the period 1995–2024. Economic growth is modeled as a function of tourism revenues, energy consumption, inflation, and the real effective exchange rate. To examine both short-run and long-run relationships among the variables, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach is employed. In addition, structural breaks are identified using the Bai–Perron multiple breakpoint test and incorporated into the empirical framework. The empirical results reveal the existence of a long-run cointegration relationship among the variables. Long-run estimates indicate that energy consumption has a positive and statistically significant effect on economic growth, providing support for the energy-led growth hypothesis. In contrast, tourism revenues do not exert a statistically significant impact on economic growth, suggesting that the tourism-led growth hypothesis is not supported in the case of Kazakhstan. The real effective exchange rate exhibits a negative long-run relationship with economic growth, while inflation does not appear to be a significant determinant. Short-run results are broadly consistent with the long-run findings and indicate a gradual adjustment toward equilibrium. Furthermore, diagnostic and stability tests indicate the adequacy, robustness, and stability of the estimated model. The findings suggest that Kazakhstan’s economic growth remains strongly associated with energy-related activities despite ongoing diversification efforts. While tourism may contribute to regional development and broader socioeconomic objectives, its contribution to macroeconomic growth appears to be limited relative to the dominant role of the energy sector. The study contributes to the literature by jointly evaluating the tourism-led growth and energy-led growth hypotheses within a unified framework and provides policy-relevant evidence regarding the challenges of economic diversification in resource-dependent economies.