Explore the vast range of titles available.

Ask three people to describe a special economic zone (SEZ) and three very different images may emerge. The first person may describe a fenced-in industrial estate in a developing country, populated by footloose multinational corporations (MNCs) enjoying tax breaks, with laborers in garment factories working in substandard conditions. In contrast, the second person may recount the 'miracle of Shenzhen,' a fishing village transformed into a cosmopolitan city of 14 million, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growing 100-fold, in the 30 years since it was designated as an SEZ. A third person may think about places like Dubai or Singapore, whose ports serve as the basis for wide range of trade- and logistics-oriented activities. In this book, the author use SEZ as a generic expression to describe the broad range of modern economic zones discussed in this book. But we are most concerned with two specific forms of those zones: (1) the export processing zones (EPZs) or free zones, which focus on manufacturing for export; and (2) the large-scale SEZs, which usually combine residential and multiuse commercial and industrial activity. The former represents a traditional model used widely throughout the developing world for almost four decades. The latter represents a more recent form of economic zone, originating in the 1980s in China and gaining in popularity in recent years. Although these models need not be mutually exclusive (many SEZs include EPZ industrial parks within them), they are sufficiently different in their objectives, investment requirements, and approach to require a distinction in this book.

New horizons are opening for Africa, with a growing number of Chinese andIndian businesses fostering its integration into advanced markets. However,significant imbalances will have to be addressed on both sides of the equation to support long-term growth.

During the period of decolonization and the Cold War, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and US development agencies promoted free trade zones to developing countries. However, other zones emerged prior to and apart from these policy models, some of which, including India’s early zones, took on features of this model only by the 1980s. To make sense of zones within and beyond a UNIDO model, this article understands them through their connection to the rise of nation-state territoriality around the world. The zone is thereby a spatial strategy used in processes of state (re)territorialization to rearticulate state spatiality under the global condition. This article explores such a perspective by situating the history of India’s early free trade zones comparatively.

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.

I consider Scott Frey’s work on “The Transfer of Core-Based Hazardous Production Processes to the Export Processing Zones of the Periphery: The Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico,” published in 2003, including the contributions of this research to broader thinking on world-systems theory and peripheral industrialization. I also discuss how Frey’s article has inspired my own research, and why I use this article in my seminar on The Political Economy of Globalization. I argue that the ideas presented in Frey’s article continue to be deeply relevant today. He leaves behind a legacy that will inspire and influence current and future generations of world-systems scholars and global citizens.

Since the early 1990s, most developing economies have become more integrated with the world's economy. Trade and foreign investment barriers have been progressively lifted and international trade agreements signed. These reforms have led to important changes in the structures of these economies. The labor markets have adjusted to these major changes, and workers were required to adapt to them in one way or another. In 2006, the Social Protection Unit of the World Bank launched an important research program to understand the impact that these profound structural changes have had on workers in developing countries. 'Globalization, Wages, and the Quality of Jobs: Five Country Studies' presents the findings and insights of this important research program. In particular, the authors present the similar experiences of low-income countries with globalization and suggest that low-income countries' working conditions have improved in the sectors exposed to globalization. However, 'Globalization, Wages, and the Quality of Jobs' also highlights concerns about the sustainability of these improvements and that the positive demonstration effects on the rest of the economy are unclear. The empirical literature that exists, although vast, does not lead to a consensus view on globalization's eventual impact on labor markets. Understanding the effects of globalization is crucial for governments concerned about employment, working conditions, and ultimately, poverty reduction. Beyond job creation, improving the quality of those jobs is an essential condition for achieving poverty reduction. 'Globalization, Wages, and the Quality of Jobs' adds to the existing literature in two ways. First, the authors provide a comprehensive literature review on the current wisdom on globalization and present a micro-based framework for analyzing globalization and working conditions in developing countries. Second, the authors apply this framework to five developing countries: Cambodia, El Salvador, Honduras, Indonesia, and Madagascar. This volume will be of interest to government policy makers, trade officials, and others working to expand the benefits of globalization to developing countries.

This paper presents empirical evidence that the growth of export manufacturing in Mexico during a period of major trade reforms {the years 1986 to 2000) altered the distribution of education. I use variation in the timing of factory openings across commuting zones to show that school drop-out increased with local expansions in export-manufacturing industries. The magnitudes I find suggest that for every 25 jobs created, one student dropped out of school at grade 9 rather than continuing through to grade 12. These effects are driven by less-skilled export-manufacturing jobs which raised the opportunity cost of schooling for students at the margin.

Cover -- Copyright page -- Foreword -- Preface -- Contents -- List of boxes -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Facts and figures on EPZs -- EPZs: De nition, origins and forms over time -- How have EPZs evolved over time? -- Statistical overview of EPZs -- Overview of special incentives given in EPZs -- Why do governments create EPZs? -- Enterprises and EPZs -- EPZ economic sectors, investors and export markets -- Exercises -- Chapter 2: The Profile of workers in EPZs -- Women workers -- Young workers -- Impoverished workers -- Migrant workers -- Precarious workers -- Exercises -- Chapter 3: Working conditions in EPZs in light of the ILO decent work agenda -- The ILO Decent Work Agenda -- Employment issues in EPZs -- Quantity of employment -- Quality of employment -- Workers' rights in EPZs -- Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to -- Review of key violations of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 in EPZs -- Legal restrictions on unionization -- Access to EPZs -- Legal restrictions on industrial action -- Interference in the affairs of workers' organizations -- Anti-union discrimination -- Collective bargaining -- The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and -- The elimination of forced or compulsory labour -- The elimination of child labour -- Labour inspection -- Social protection in EPZs -- Termination of employment -- Social security -- Wages -- Working time -- Occupational health and safety -- Maternity protection -- HIV/AIDS at the workplace -- Workers with family responsibilities -- Sexual harassment and gender-based violence -- Social Dialogue in EPZs -- Exercises -- Chapter 4: Trade Union Responses: engagement in policy debates -- Do EPZs promote forward and backward linkages to -- Costs and bene ts of EPZs -- The impact of terminating the Multi Fibre Arrangement.