IESET.
Policies·th_boi_export_tax_holiday_regime_1983

BOI export-oriented tax-holiday regime expansion (Thailand 1983)

THA·1983 – 1987·Prem rotating coalitionscandidate
movestax corporate↓trade openness↑sectoral subsidy↑

What the policy did

Board of Investment Promotion Act revisions 1983-1987 expanded tax-holiday regime for export-oriented manufacturing: 3-8 year corporate-income-tax holidays, machinery-import duty exemptions, raw-material-import duty exemptions for export production, and double-deduction for export-promotion expenses. Drove FDI surge post-1985 (Japanese electronics and auto relocation after Plaza Accord).

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended
↓
tax corporate
fiscal.tax_corporate
Statutory and effective corporate tax rates, treatment of depreciation, and international competitiveness.
decreased · moderate
lower corporate tax burden
Tax holidays created effective low CIT for promoted firms.
↑
trade openness
regulatory.trade_openness
Trade policy openness — tariffs, non-tariff barriers, FTAs, industrial protection.
increased · moderate
more open trade
Duty-free import regime for export-oriented production.
↑
sectoral subsidy
fiscal.sectoral_subsidy
Targeted industrial and sectoral subsidies (renewable energy, chip manufacturing, agriculture, green hydrogen, etc).
increased · moderate
expanded sectoral subsidies
Targeted investment-promotion subsidies via BOI pipelines.

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

Canada’s long-run prosperity after the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (1988) and NAFTA (1994) is more associated with market openness than with national industrial-policy initiatives.
canada_market_liberalisation_vs_state_industry_1988_2024inferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'canada_post_1988' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects
run pending
Across a broad panel of countries 1960-2019, higher trade openness predicts faster long-run convergence of real GDP per capita toward the global frontier (the United States) than industrial-policy intensity does.
trade_openness_long_run_income_convergenceinferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
PARTIAL — coef=+6.729e-18, p=0.00881; effect magnitude effectively zero
partial
In a panel of middle-income countries 1990-2020, export complexity (Hausmann-Hidalgo Economic Complexity Index) rises more following reforms that improve foreign market access and reduce domestic entry barriers than following expansions of subsidy-only industrial policy.
export_complexity_market_access_vs_subsidyinferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
PARTIAL — coef=+4.68e-14, p=0.393; effect magnitude effectively zero
partial
Estonia adopted among the most radical market-liberalisation packages of any post-Soviet state — flat tax (26% universal rate, 1994), currency board (EEK pegged to DM/EUR, 1992), rapid privatisation, unilateral free trade, and minimal capital controls — and by 2007 had recovered to Soviet-era GDP per capita levels and substantially exceeded them, while Belarusian and Ukrainian peers had not recovered comparably.
estonia_market_reform_post_soviet_growth_1991_2007inferred
viaregulatory.trade_openness
PARTIAL — recovery threshold pass=True (year_recovered=1998, 2007 vs 1991 = 70.53282727739165); Baltic−CIS gap pass=False (gap=5.1509956229348575)
partial
Ireland’s long-run convergence from a middle-income to a high-income economy during 1987–2024 is better predicted by trade openness, tax competitiveness, and FDI entry than by classic industrial planning.
ireland_market_opening_fdi_frontier_1987_2024inferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.tax_corporatefiscal.sectoral_subsidy
supported
supported
Lula third-term's Nova Indústria Brasil 2024 industrial-policy package, conditioned on export performance and technology-diffusion metrics, produces measurable sectoral capability gains (semiconductors, green hydrogen, health-industrial complex) by 2030 — replicating the East Asian export-discipline conditionality pattern rather than the earlier Latin American import-substitution-industrialisation pattern.
nova_industria_brasil_export_discipline_pattern_effectinferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING
run pending
Hong Kong's long-run income convergence to the productivity frontier without classic industrial policy (sectoral targeting, directed credit, national champions, or SOE promotion) matches or exceeds that of developmentalist East Asian comparators after controlling for initial income, human capital, and trade openness.
hong_kong_no_industrial_policy_frontier_comparisoninferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
REFUTED — coef=-0.06133 (sign opposite claim +), p=7.33e-15
refuted
Consumer product variety and price-adjusted welfare improve more after episodes of trade liberalisation and competition-policy reform than after state industrial-policy episodes of comparable duration and scale, in a panel of middle- and high-income countries 1980-2020.
consumer_choice_variety_trade_market_reforminferred
viaregulatory.trade_opennessfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'competition_reform_episode' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects
run pending

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

Argentina Deregulation Omnibus 2024
ARG·2023
match
1.8
trade opennesstax corporatesectoral subsidy
Investment Incentives Act 1998
CZE·1998
match
1.8
sectoral subsidytax corporatetrade openness
Zambia mineral royalty deductibility reform 2022
ZMB·2022
match
1.8
tax corporatetrade opennesssectoral subsidy
Jebel Ali Port and Free Zone establishment 1979-1985
ARE·1979
match
1.7
trade opennesstax corporate
Irish Corporate Tax reduction programme 1987-2003
IRL·1987
match
1.7
tax corporatetrade openness
Shanghai Pudong New Area establishment 1990
CHN·1990
match
1.5
trade opennesstax corporate
Irish corporate tax 12.5% standardisation
IRL·1999
match
1.5
tax corporatetrade openness
Ireland International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) foundation (1987)
IRL·1987
match
1.5
tax corporatetrade openness

References