Národohospodářská fakulta Vysoké školy ekonomické v Praze, nám. Winstona Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3 tel.: +420 224 095 521, fax: +420 224 221 718, URL: http://nf.vse.cz
REVIEW OF THE BACHERLOR THESIS OPPONENT
Student’s name and surname: Tolkyn Aubakirova
Thesis title: Urbanization in the Republic of Kazakhstan: the growth of the cities and its relationship with the changes in the economy
Thesis opponent: Klára Čermáková
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Assessment of the main aspects of the thesis:
1 Structure of the thesis (logical and systematic construction) x x ☐ ☐
2 Goal of the thesis (unambiguity of formulation, adequacy) ☐ x ☐ ☐
3 Quality of the theoretical part x ☐ ☐ ☐
4 Quality of the application/analytical/empirical part x ☐ ☐ ☐
5 Adequacy of the methods to the goal of the thesis x ☐ ☐ ☐
6 Sources (topicality, relevance, frequency) x ☐ ☐ ☐
7 Quality of conclusions, fulfillment of the goal of the thesis x ☐ ☐ ☐
8 Formal aspects (formatting, stylistics, references) ☐ x ☐ ☐
Verbal assessment (describe the strongest and weakest aspects of the thesis; especially in case of a low assessment 3-4, concrete reproaches need to be expressed):
The thesis is logically structured. The introduction opens a scientific debate and informs the reader about the Kazakhstan level of urbanization. What I miss here is any information about the scope, aim and objective of the thesis and a hypothesis proposed. It seems to me that the introductory part is not much focused and is quite general. Although the aim is somewhat understood from the context, it is not literally defined in the thesis until Conclusion. The hypothesis “the higher share of urban population is associated with higher rates of Kazakhstan´s economic growth” is stated in the Abstract, however the Introduction should contain this information and inform the reader about the aim and hypothesis in the context of a relevant background. The abstract itself would merit a reformulation. Generally, an abstract should be very focused and inform the reader about the main findings and value added of the study. General statements or evaluation of own contribution to scientific debate are not much relevant for the reader at this stage of reading the thesis.
The theoretical part contains a useful background for a reader ranging from general debate about agglomeration economics and urbanization to a detailed information about specifics and development of urbanization in Kazakhstan.
The analytical part is methodologically rigorous and narrowly proceeds to testing of the hypothesis proposed. Construction of the model, dataset and all variables are well explained. I appreciate a clear interpretation of own results as well as of possible limitations of the constructed model. Conclusions are relevant to the goal of the thesis, I appreciate their theoretical settlement. The value added of this thesis is obvious and consists not only in own analysis of the relationship between urbanization and economic growth in Kazakhstan, but above all in the ability of the author to generalize own findings and formulate relevant policy implications.
All parts of the thesis are compatible. Language is easy to understand, the text is interesting and clear. Typos are very rare, unfortunately one of the typos appears in spelling of the name of Robert Lucas.
The layout is nice, contains a number of very informative graphs and tables, but some details could have been finalized with more care (e.g. block formatting until page 32, left formatting onwards). Citations are frequent and identifiable, literature sources are recent, relevant and abundant, however the list of literature does not contain all titles used in the text (e.g. Arthur Okun, 1962). It is also not clear to me why this citation (p. 37) is made as a footnote.
Complex assessment (it is necessary to state whether the thesis complies with the Methodological guidelines of the Faculty of Economics, University of Economics, Prague as concerns the quality of the content, the extent and formal requirements and whether the thesis is being recommended to the defense or not; the thesis can also be nominated to a special award, etc.
):
The thesis meets both formal and content requirements. I recommend the thesis for defense.
Questions to the defense:
Based on your research, do you think that your results can be generalized for all countries, or is the case of Kazakhstan somewhat specific so that the relationship between urbanization and economic performance has different features?
Suggested grade: very good
Date: May 31st, 2021 ...
Thesis opponent’s signature
