Africa

A broad look at export competitiveness of the Dominican Republic, where I contribute with a perspective on special economic zones.

Despite decades of international experience, there remains no blueprint for successful special economic zone policies. We propose a ‘robust political economy’ framework that divides political economy problems into those of inadequate knowledge and distorted incentives.

This paper is a first attempt to apply a robust political economy framework to explain when Special Economic Zones can contribute to economic development. The framework can be applied to judge their potential efficacy, something that orthodox studies of country features such as natural resources, infrastructure, and zone location fail to do.