Laura Kuanova

Demand for ethical and Sharia-compliant investment instruments has driven substantial academic interest in Sukuk, a key component of Islamic finance offering alternatives to conventional bonds. The paper aims to analyze research trends in the field of Sukuk through a comprehensive bibliometric and content analysis of publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science from 1990 to 2024. Relationships between authorship patterns, institutional affiliations, geographical distribution, applied methodologies, and key findings are examined to identify emerging research trajectories in the field of Sukuk. The analysis covers the evolution of research topics over 33 years, assessing annual achievements, influential articles, keyword dynamics, and topical changes. The paper uses a hybrid method, including bibliometric and content analysis and a systematic literature review (SLR) using the PRISMA methodology, which ensures a high degree of scientific validity. The findings marked growth in Sukuk-related research in the past decade, with growing attention to sustainable finance (Environmental, Social, and Governance Sukuk), green Sukuk, and digitalization. Thematic mapping identifies five major research clusters in Scopus and six in Web of Science, emphasizing investment efficiency, regulatory challenges, Sharia compliance, and market integration. Additionally, the crucial impact of Sukuk on risk management and resilience was revealed during crises while uncovering ongoing gaps such as low secondary market liquidity, insufficient standardization, and limited cross-border compatibility.

Acknowledgments
The study was funded by the Committee Science of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan “Investigating the impact of macroeconomic, political, and digital processes on financial sustainability of Kazakhstan” No. AP19674948.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between tourism development and income inequality across regions of the Republic of Kazakhstan, using regional panel data for 2003–2024. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced panel of 16 regions, comprising 367 region–year observations. Fixed-effects regression models are employed to examine how two distinct dimensions of tourism development (tourism services per capita and tourist accommodation places per capita) affect income inequality measured by the regional Gini coefficient.
The results indicate that the intensity of tourism service provision does not have a statistically significant effect on income inequality, even after controlling for cross-sectional dependence. In contrast, tourism accommodation infrastructure capacity is positively and statistically significantly associated with regional income inequality across all model specifications. Additional results show that income inequality is significantly influenced by poverty incidence, income polarization, healthcare expenditures, and the share of the rural population.
The coefficients on the per-capita tourist accommodation variable are positive across all specifications. This indicates that the growth of this indicator contributes to increased income inequality. Moreover, the coefficients for the indicators ShServPop and ShServPop(–1) are significant. However, they cannot be relied upon, as Pesaran’s test rejects the hypothesis of cross-sectional independence for these specifications. This suggests that the growth of tourism infrastructure may exacerbate, rather than reduce, regional income differences due to capital concentration, skill-labor-oriented employment, and price effects.
The results highlight the need for complementary policies that promote inclusive tourism development and mitigate inequality-enhancing effects of tourism-related infrastructure investment.

Acknowledgment
This study was funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan within the framework of the IRN grant project AP26198345 “Reducing socio-economic inequality in the regions of Kazakhstan through investments in health and improving the organization of the healthcare system.”