Do Special Economic Zones Boost Employment? Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

Michele Limosani, Emanuele Millemaci, Fabio Monteforte and Paolo Fabrizio Mustica

No mf2n6_v2, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: This paper investigates whether Special Economic Zones (SEZs) effectively foster em- ployment through a comprehensive meta-analysis. While numerous country-level studies have examined SEZ policies, their results remain fragmented and potentially biased by methodological and publication-related factors. To address this gap, we compile a meta- regression dataset of 851 estimates from 33 empirical studies that quantify the impact of SEZs on employment. Once corrected for publication bias, the average effect of SEZ programs on employment approaches zero. However, heterogeneous results emerge across different development contexts, with developing countries recording significant employ- ment gains compared to their developed counterparts.

Date: 2025-12-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/69327622bce49ad7c1fbf3c2/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:mf2n6_v2

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mf2n6_v2

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().