SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES AND FDI ATTRACTION TO DISTRICTS IN VIETNAM: A NON-PARAMETRIC APPROACH

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are considered as an important regional industrial policy to attract foreign investment in a developing country such as Vietnam. The development of SEZs in Vietnam including the comprehensive review of infrastructure and business environment in SEZs is presented in this paper for the first time. Moreover, our results reveal the lower estimated density of domestic customers and suppliers connecting with foreign direct invested firms in SEZs in comparison to their domestic counterparts. Most importantly, this paper gives novel non-parametric evidence to indicate the positive causal effects of the zoning policies on the foreign direct investment at district level in the country during the period of 2011–2015.