The process of economic reforms launched in 1978, and gradually extended until current days, has catapulted China into a stellar growth trajectory that has proven highly resilient. In this paper, we estimate the effect on economic development of China’s industrial policy, in particular, the...

We estimate the effect on economic development of China's industrial policy, in particular, the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). We use data from a panel of 276 Chinese cities and prefectures from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimator exploits the variation in the...