As a policy tool for development, special economic zones (SEZs) are rapidly proliferating globally, mainly due to the new industrialization wave and competition for FDIs. However, their performance is quite mixed. What drives their heterogeneous performance? This paper intends to define a ‘quality framework’ for SEZs based on the key drivers for their success, and validates its effectiveness in a quantitative way through a ‘quality-performance’ matrix using thirteen SEZ cases in Sub-Sahara Africa. The research identifies seven key drivers and derives a ‘quality score’ for each zone based on its level at each driver. The score is then used to map with the zone's performance (mainly the jobs and investments in this paper). The regression result shows that the ‘quality’ of a SEZ is highly correlated with its ‘performance’, which provides important empirical evidence for effective SEZ policies. Based on this research, the paper also offers some key policy lessons.

中文翻译：

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是什么决定了经济特区的异质表现？来自撒哈拉以南非洲的证据

作为发展的政策工具，经济特区 (SEZ) 在全球范围内迅速扩散，这主要是由于新的工业化浪潮和对外国直接投资的竞争。然而，他们的表现参差不齐。是什么驱动了它们的异构性能？本文旨在根据经济特区成功的关键驱动因素为经济特区定义“质量框架”，并使用撒哈拉以南非洲的 13 个经济特区案例通过“质量-绩效”矩阵以定量方式验证其有效性。该研究确定了七个关键驱动因素，并根据每个驱动因素的水平得出每个区域的“质量分数”。然后使用该分数与区域的表现（主要是本文中的工作和投资）进行映射。回归结果表明，经济特区的“质量”与其“绩效”高度相关，这为有效的经济特区政策提供了重要的经验证据。基于这项研究，本文还提供了一些重要的政策教训。