The role of Kazakhstan’s oil policy in foreign policy

The authors examined environmental responsibility and financial performance nexus of Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s socially responsible investing manufacturing and mining firms during the period of 2008-2014. The study employs annual panel dataset of fourteen manufacturing and mining companies on the index, and Granger causality analysis using Gcause2 Baum’s version. The paper found unidirectional causal relationship between environmental responsibility, measured by emissions intensity and equity returns, and bidirectional causal relationship between emissions intensity and market value of equity deflated by sales at 1% significant levels. Impliedly, improvements in ‘energy efficient technologies’ to reduce fossil energy consumption (prevention activities) seem to exhibit value destroying tendencies, while improvements in ‘end-of-pipe’ activities seem to estimate a drive market value of equity deflated by sales and equity returns. The Pesaran CD and Breusch-Pagan LM tests confirmed existence of cross-sectional dependence amongst panel members. The authors tend to support institutional and stakeholder theories.

Modern trading systems are mechanic, run automatically on computers inside trading platforms and decide their position against the market through optimized parameters and algorithmic strategies. These systems now, in most cases, comprise high frequency traders, especially in the Forex market.
In this research, a piece of software of an automatic high frequency trading system was developed, based on the technical indicator PIVOT (price level breakthrough). The system made transactions on hourly closing prices with weekly parameters optimization period, using the d-Backtest PS method.
Through the search and checking of the results, two findings for optimization of trading strategy were found. These findings with the order they were examined and are presented in this paper are as follows: (1) the simultaneous use of “long and short” positions, with different parameters in a hedging account, acts as a hedging strategy, minimizing losses, in relation to a “long or short” in a non-hedging account for the same time period and (2) there is weak correlation of past backtesting periods between the same systems, if they are configured for “long and short” trades, or for just “long” or for just “short”.

Nowadays, the modernization of the education system is the basis of dynamic sustainable economic development and citizens’ well-being. The key agent for the implementation of educational policy and the developer of the legal framework governing the functioning of the educational sphere is the state and its bodies. The Kazakhstani state policy’s main priorities in the field of education are formulated in several strategic documents. Using the review approach, this article examines the current state of public policy and legal regulation in Kazakhstan’s education sector. The article analyzes key documents that define the contours and content of the main directions of public policy and legal regulation. This article attempts to identify, review, and analyze the legal characteristics of the key process and factors existing in the legal field of Kazakhstani education, such as “Bologna factor,” “soviet legacy,” “provision of quality,” etc. The article concludes that the existing legal tools do not fully comply with law enforcement practice. The interpretations of some legal acts are somewhat different, which causes difficulties for actors providing educational services. Based on the result of the analysis, the article provides the main recommendations for improving legislation in education.

Acknowledgment
This article was written under grant from Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science No. АР05135081 “Student with disabilities and distance education learning environment: socio-practical and legal dimensions” coordinated by Prof. Dr Zulfiya Movkebayeva (Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University).