Mexican EPZs as an Indicator of the Future Outlines of a NAFTA: The Case of Sonora

Lawrence W. Nowicki

Chapter 17 in North American Free Trade Agreement, 1993, pp 206-221 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Export processing zones (EPZs) have a dual nature: they are both an administrative instrument for providing free-trade status to a nation’s manufactured exports as well as industrial parks specialized in manufacturing for export (World Bank, 1992). In the absence of an economy-wide, ‘market-friendly’ (World Bank, 1991) environment for growth — a favorable entrepreneurial climate, macroeconomic stability, extensive external links and broad state support for human capital and infrastructure — EPZs have been employed with varying success by less developed countries (LDCs), including several of the most protectionist, inward-oriented ones, as a selective policy tool in their attempts to earn foreign exchange, increase employment and ultimately induce industrialization. The use of EPZs to shift to a more open, competitive, free-trade strategy for growth and domestic development has been characterized as a ‘post-Listian’ breakthrough to the extent that it represents a radical departure from the restrictive strategy of import-substitution industrialization (ILO/UNCTC, 1988, p. 155). Perhaps the term ‘anti-Listian’ might be more appropriate to describe the 180-degree policy shift that the EPZ-assisted open border strategy of industrialization can represent.

Keywords: Foreign Firm; Fringe Benefit; Industrial Park; North American Free Trade Agreement; Border City (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palchp:978-1-349-22976-5_17

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349229765

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-22976-5_17

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().