The political economy of special economic zones: the cases of Ethiopia and Vietnam

Keyi Tang

Review of International Political Economy, 2023, vol. 30, issue 5, 1957-1983

Abstract: There are over 5,000 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the world. About 75 percent of developing economies and almost all transition economies use SEZs in their early stages of industrialization. Why have SEZs traveled so far and fast globally? How does this policy vary when it enters different national contexts? I develop an SEZ policy adoption framework for developing or transitioning countries. I then apply the framework to compare how Ethiopia and Vietnam have learned from mainland China and Taiwan’s SEZ policies. Drawing on field interviews with 53 key stakeholders, I argue that the recent wave of SEZ adoption among late industrializers is rooted in their desires to catch up, just as China and other Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs) did. A coalition between the NIEs’ governments, private investors, and state-owned companies actively promoting their model become the key policy ambassadors in the globalization of SEZ while expanding NIE capital to emerging markets. The localization of SEZs in national contexts, however, is constrained by their extant institutional settings. My case studies demonstrate the importance of policy transfer as a driver of SEZ policy and highlight the critical role that emulation plays in late industrialization.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2022.2152073 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rripxx:v:30:y:2023:i:5:p:1957-1983

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rrip20

DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2022.2152073

Access Statistics for this article

Review of International Political Economy is currently edited by Gregory Chin, Juliet Johnson, Daniel Mügge, Kevin Gallagher, Ilene Grabel and Cornelia Woll

More articles in Review of International Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().