As instruments for encouraging economic development, export processing zones have only limited usefulness. A better policy choice is general liberalization of a country's economy.

Industrialization supported by industrial hubs has been widely associated with structural transformation and catch-up. But while the direct economic benefits of industrial hubs are significant, their value lies first and foremost in their contribution as incubators of industrialization, production and technological capability, and innovation. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Hubs and Economic Development adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine the conceptual underpinnings, review empirical evidence of regions and economies, and extract pertinent lessons for policy reasearchers and practitioners on the key drivers of success and failure for industrial hubs. This Handbook illustrates the diverse and complex nature of industrial hubs and shows how they promote industrialization, economic structural transformation, and technological catch-up. It explores the implications of emerging issues and trends such as environmental protection and sustainability, technological advancement, shifts in the global economy, and urbanization.

For countries as diverse as China and Mauritius, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been a powerful tool to attract foreign investment, promote export-oriented growth, and generate employment; for many others, the results have been less than encouraging. While the benefits and limitations of zones will no doubt continue to be debated, what is clear is that policymakers are increasingly attracted to them as an instrument of trade, investment, industrial, and spatial policy. Since the mid 1980s, the number of newly-established zones has grown rapidly in almost all regions, with dramatic growth in developing countries. In parallel with this growth and in the evolving context of global trade and investment, zones are also undergoing significant change in both their form and function, with traditional export processing zones (EPZs) increasingly giving way to larger and more flexible SEZ models. This new context will bring significant opportunities for developing countries to take advantage of SEZs, but will also raise new challenges to their successful design and implementation. This volume aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role and practice of SEZs in developing countries, in order to better equip policymakers in making effective decisions in planning and implementing SEZ programs. It covers some of the emerging issues and challenges in SEZs including upgrading, regional integration, WTO compliance, innovation, the environment, and gender issues with practical case examples from SEZ programs in developing countries.

"This book, designed for policymakers, academics and researchers, and SEZ program practitioners, provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of SEZ programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is the result of detailed surveys and case studies conducted during 2009 in ten developing countries, including six in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book provides quantitative evidence of the performance of SEZs, and of the factors which contribute to that performance, highlighting the critical importance not just of the SEZ itself but of the wider national investment climate in which it functions. It also provides a comprehensive guide to the key policy questions that confront governments establishing SEZ programs, including: if and when to launch an SEZ program, what form of SEZ is most appropriate, and how to go about implementing it. Among the most important findings from the study that is stressed in the book is the shift from traditional enclave models of zones to SEZs that are integrated ? with national trade and industrial strategies, with core trade and social infrastructure, with domestic suppliers, and with local labor markets.Although the book focuses primarily on the experience of Sub-Saharan Africa, its lessons will be applicable to developing countries around the world."

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.

The monograph summarizes a significant part of the results of the research project entitled “Foreign Trade in Special Economic Zones in Poland”, financed by the National Science Centre in Poland (project no. DEC-2013/11/D/HS4/04007). The project aimed at identifying the real impact of SEZs on Poland’s trade turnover. Its implementation focused on expanding the available scope of knowledge on the impact of the SEZs on the Poland’s trade and has enabled to join in the ongoing national and international academic debate on further functioning of various types of areas of special preference. Moreover, the research permitted for identification of microeconomic determinants of the impact of the SEZs on business entities in terms of their export activities contributing to a wideningof scientific achievements in the field of economics. Readers interested in further exports analyses of SEZs in Poland, are kindly asked to refer to https://nazarczuk.wordpress.com/hzwsse/ or https://www.researchgate.net/project/Foreign-Trade-in-Special-Economic-Zones-in-Poland, where the authors have published electronic versions of publications created within the project. On the above-mentioned websites, we also deposit electronic attachments to this book, which due to their volume and therefore lower readability, have been removed from the paper version of the book. The book covers unique approach to the analysis of foreign trade. It presents a macroeconomic, mesoeconomic and microeconomic perspective on the effects of special economic zones operation with regard to foreign trade to provide a better understanding of consequences of SEZs’ establishment (for country, region or a firm). To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first (so comprehensive) evaluation of SEZs functioning thereof.

This textbook includes discussions of such topics as the environment, the debt case, export-led industrialization, import substitution industrialization, growth theory and technological capability.

This report focuses on special economic zones (SEZs) which are widely used across most developing and many developed economies. It explores the place of SEZs in today's global investment landscape and provides guidance for policymakers on how to make SEZs work for sustainable development. It presents international investment trends and prospects at global, regional and national levels, as well as the evolution of international production and global value chains. It analyses the latest developments in new policy measures for investment promotion, facilitation and regulation around the world.