Does the Elimination of Export Requirements in Special Economic Zones Affect Export Performance? : Evidence from the Dominican Republic

Defever, Fabrice ; Reyes, Jose-Daniel ; Riano, Alejandro ; Sanchez-Martin, Miguel Eduardo

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: special economic zones;    industrial policy;    export competitiveness;    World Trade Organization;    export requirements;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7874
RP-ID  :  WPS7874

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Special economic zones, one of the mostimportant instruments of industrial policy in developingcountries, often feature export share requirements. That is,firms located in these zones are obliged to export more thana certain stated share of their output to enjoy the widearray of incentives available there, a practice prohibitedby the World Trade Organization. This paper exploits thestaggered removal of export requirements across products andover time in the special economic zones of the DominicanRepublic to evaluate whether the importance of exportsoriginating from the zones was affected by the eliminationof export requirements. The findings show that entryincreased among firms in special economic zones, while theaverage value of export transactions fell for existingexporters following the reforms. At the same time,continuous exporters were unaffected by the policy change,possibly because these firms were not constrained by theexport requirement. Overall, special economic zones becamemore important with respect to the number of exporters basedthere but not in terms of the value of exports. The findingssuggest that the elimination of performance requirementsmade it more attractive for firms to be based in specialeconomic zones.