## Costa Rica: Selected Issues

_IMF Staff Country Reports, December 22, 2023_

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Costa Rica: Selected Issues](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/cr/issues/2023/12/22/costa-rica-selected-issues-542918)

## Other formats

- [Markdown version](/en/publications/cr/issues/2023/12/22/costa-rica-selected-issues-542918/index.md)
- [Structured JSON version](/en/publications/cr/issues/2023/12/22/costa-rica-selected-issues-542918/index.json)
- [Bundle manifest](/en/publications/cr/issues/2023/12/22/costa-rica-selected-issues-542918/bundle-manifest.json)

## Bibliographic details
- Published: December 22, 2023
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400264924.002

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### Main findings
- Estimates of Costa Rica’s real natural rate of interest are between 0 and 3 percent.
- A suite of semistructural and univariate methods reaffirms a central estimate close to 1 percent.
- Univariate estimates for Costa Rica lie between those for the United States and the largest regional peers.
- Replicating the univariate approach for the United States and other countries in Latin America suggests Costa Rica has a somewhat lower neutral real interest rate than the largest regional peers, Brazil and Mexico.
- Brazil and Mexico currently appear to have neutral rates above 2 percent but above the United States.
- Structural changes to the Costa Rican economy, particularly in recent years, have important implications for movement in the neutral rate.

### Methods and evidence
- Multiple differing methods were applied, including semistructural and univariate approaches, to account for characteristics of the Costa Rican economy.
- The toolkit of methods consistently indicates that current monetary policy remains restrictive.

### Implications for monetary policy
- Given neutral rate estimates between 0 and 3 percent and a central estimate near 1 percent, current monetary policy is assessed as restrictive under the paper’s estimations.
- Comparisons with regional peers (Brazil and Mexico) and the United States provide a benchmark for interpreting Costa Rica’s neutral rate and policy stance.

_International Monetary Fund. "Costa Rica: Selected Issues", IMF Staff Country Reports No. 2023/443, December 22, 2023._

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## Content in this bundle

- **Costa Rica: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 23/443; December 6, 2023**
  - [Costa Rica: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 23/443; December 6, 2023 (Markdown version)](/-/media/files/publications/cr/2023/english/1criea2023006.pdf.md){rel="alternate" type="text/markdown"}
  - [Costa Rica: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 23/443; December 6, 2023 (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/cr/2023/english/1criea2023006.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/cr/issues/2023/12/22/costa-rica-selected-issues-542918_