Uneven effects of the urban tax-free zone (“Zones Franches Urbaines”) policy’s impact: The consequences of a hemmed-in geographical position

We wish to highlight the geographical situation’s importance for urban areas targeted by the policy, namely their remoteness from metropolitan areas to which they are supposedly linked. The tax-free zones’ effect may indeed be beneficial only for a particular type of underprivileged neighborhood, strongly isolated or at the opposite barely isolated from the rest of the “neighboring” agglomeration.