This paper investigates the impact of special economic zones (SEZs) on economic growth. We use the Pudong New Area Open Economic Zone in Shanghai for our comparative case study and find this policy tool to have added up to CNY 7,166 to GDP per capita compared to a synthetic counterfactual without such a policy. Given that different reform policies were undertaken in different provinces including Shanghai itself even before the launch of the Pudong New Area Open Economic Zone, our findings might be considered conservative.