Special Economic Zones : An Operational Review of Their Impacts
Policy-makers across developing economies are implementing different forms of special economic zones (SEZs): programs intended to catalyze economic growth. The SEZ program is aimed at attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to increase firm-leve...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/316931512640011812/Special-economic-zones-an-operational-review-of-their-impacts http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29054 |
| Summary: | Policy-makers across developing
economies are implementing different forms of special
economic zones (SEZs): programs intended to catalyze
economic growth. The SEZ program is aimed at attracting
foreign direct investment (FDI) to increase firm-level
investment and improve firm-level productivity by enhancing
firm-level coordination, networks, and innovation. The
purpose of this operational review is to inform and to
identify and document lessons from the application of these
policies across countries and across the World Bank’s
project portfolio. The report reviews the SEZ programs, and
the characteristics and contexts that are associated with
the success of SEZ policies. The report also adds to the
general SEZ debate of whether the benefits generated by SEZs
are restricted to the firms within the walls of the SEZs
with limited social benefit; or whether SEZs eventually lead
to spillovers that support structural change generating high
social benefits. The report is structure as follows: chapter
one gives introduction. Chapter two, provides a brief
literature review of SEZ theory and performance. Chapter
three provides an overview of the dataset developed for this
work. Chapter four presents the econometric estimation using
the dataset (for the explanatory variables) and nighttime
lights data over 5 years as a measure of success (and
dependent variable). Finally, chapter five focuses on the
World-Bank-Group-funded projects that contain an SEZ
component and assess the factors determining success and
failures of SEZs. |
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