https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/case-for-charter-cities-effective-altruism (archived announcement, archived report)
Excerpt:
A substantial theoretical and empirical economic literature argues that institutions are the primary determinant of long-run economic outcomes. The paper offers a brief introduction to the institutions literature and presents two case studies focusing on sets of major institutional reforms that pulled billions out of extreme poverty: India and China. We discuss the potential areas for reform in a charter city and the widespread success of special economic zones and other projects like charter cities.
Finally, we make an initial effort at quantifying the cost-effectiveness of charter cities. Although the model is relatively simplistic, it allows for direct comparison between GiveWell’s top charities and the Charter Cities Institute. Our modeling suggests that a single charter city could be as effective as Deworm the World, GiveWell’s top charity, within 50 years. Under a set of optimistic but not unreasonable assumptions, a charter city could be over 40 times as effective as Deworm the World.
A 0.5% boost in annual GDP per capita growth doesn't strike me as a very pessimistic "pessimistic" estimate.
Regulation and Growth looks to be one of the two citations on this (IMO crucial) parameter, but it's just a correlational study of regulations vs growth. The other is China's Special Economic Zones at 30 which looks to be basically a case study.
The Skeptics Guide to Institutions (four parts total) has some background from the skeptical perspective.
(For the record, I think charter cities are interesting. But I also think the domain is extremely complicated and it seems hard to get impact estimates that are even remotely reliable.)
Another beef I have is defining what an institution actually is. Institutionalists in economics often start by defining them as the 'rules of the game', which is vague as it is, but then the term gets extended to mean 'stuff' in the empirical investigations of the impact of institutions.