Economic Zones and Regional Development

Special economic zones and export processing zones are geographically bounded areas where governments suspend or modify standard regulations to attract foreign investment, stimulate industrial activity, and accelerate trade. Researchers examine whether these zones actually generate broader regional growth or mainly produce isolated enclaves, measuring effects on employment, wages, productivity spillovers, and surrounding communities using econometric methods that try to isolate causal impact from selection bias. A central debate concerns who ultimately benefits: evidence is mixed on whether host countries capture lasting gains or primarily subsidize multinational firms at the expense of labor standards and public revenue. Active research directions include how zone design interacts with ethnic diversity and social cohesion, whether zones can be restructured to meet sustainability goals, and what conditions allow industrial clusters seeded by zones to persist after preferential policies are removed.

Works

63,960

Total citations

132,050

Keywords

Special Economic ZonesExport Processing ZonesEconomic ImpactRegional DevelopmentIndustrial ClustersGlobal Trade