Export Processing Zones in the Dominican Republic: Schools or Stopgaps?

SummaryThe following paper explores the variable consequences of offshore manufacturing in the Dominican Republic. While foreign transplants have been treated as tenants in most of the country, and have thereby made transitory contributions to export and employment growth, they have been treated as tutors in the Cibao Valley, and have thereby made more lasting contributions of skill and technology. What accounts for the variation? I find that the agro-commercial elites who have traditionally dominated the Cibao Valley are simultaneously more tolerant of foreign investment than the import-competing industrialists found in the capital of Santo Domingo and more likely to diversify into manufacturing than the absentee landlords found elsewhere in the country.