Costa Rica

En tant que pays mégadivers, le Costa Rica est connu dans le monde entier pour avoir réussi à inverser la déforestation et à poursuivre un modèle de croissance fondé sur l'utilisation durable de ses ressources environnementales. Cependant, la consommation d'énergie et les émissions de gaz à effet de serre qui en découlent ont augmenté au cours de la dernière décennie. Les voitures particulières sont une source majeure et croissante d'émissions affectant le climat et la qualité de l'air. L'élimination des déchets repose encore sur les décharges et une grande partie des eaux usées n'est pas traitée. Le vaste réseau de zones protégées du Costa Rica et son programme pionnier de paiement pour les services écosystémiques ont contribué à réduire la perte de biodiversité et à accroître la capacité de séquestration du carbone par les forêts. Toutefois, davantage doit être fait pour lutter contre les pressions exercées sur la biodiversité par le développement des infrastructures et des établissements humains, le tourisme, l'agriculture et la pêche. L'ampleur des investissements nécessaires pour atteindre les Objectifs de développement durable exige d'améliorer l'efficacité des dépenses publiques, de mobiliser les financements privés, d'appliquer strictement les réglementations et de fournir des incitations adéquates. Il s'agit du premier Examen des performances environnementales du Costa Rica par l'OCDE. Il évalue les progrès réalisés par le pays en matière de développement durable, avec un chapitre spécial consacré à la biodiversité, et fournit 52 recommandations. La présente version abrégée contient le résumé, de même que l’évaluation et les recommandations officielles du rapport.

This report compiles comparable tax revenue statistics over the period 1990-2020 for 27 Latin American and Caribbean economies. Based on the OECD Revenue Statistics database, it applies the OECD methodology to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to enable comparison of tax levels and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among the economies of the region and with other economies. This publication is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Many Latin American countries have experienced improvements in income over recent decades, with several of them now classified as high-income or upper middle-income in terms of conventional metrics. But has this change been mirrored in improvements across the different areas of people’s lives? How’s Life in Latin America? Measuring Well-being for Policy Making addresses this question by presenting comparative evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with a focus on 11 LAC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay). Spanning material conditions, quality of life, resources for future well-being, and inequalities, the report presents available evidence on well-being both before and since the onset of the pandemic, based on the OECD Well-being Framework. It also identifies priorities for addressing well-being gaps and describes how well-being frameworks are used in policy within Latin America and elsewhere around the world, providing lessons for governments on what is needed to put people’s well-being at the centre of their action. The report is part of the EU Regional Facility for Development in Transition for Latin America and the Caribbean.

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources. Despite the fact that the private sector has the potential to contribute to a wide range of SDGs, and that many firms find it economically viable to develop sustainable products and services, firms still face significant hurdles in their sustainability transition. Based on this new evidence, this book provides some recommendations on the design of industrial policies to enhance the contribution of businesses to the SDGs.

L'emploi informel, défini par l'absence de protection sociale basée sur l'emploi, constitue la majeure partie de l'emploi dans les pays en développement, et entraîne un niveau de vulnérabilité à la pauvreté et à d'autres risques qui sont supportés par tous ceux qui dépendent des revenus du travail informel. Les résultats de la base de données des Indicateurs clés de l’informalité en fonction des individus et leurs ménages (KIIbIH) montrent qu'un nombre disproportionné de travailleurs de l'économie informelle de la classe moyenne reçoivent des transferts de fonds. Ces résultats confirment que les stratégies de gestion des risques, telles que la migration, jouent un rôle dans la minimisation des risques potentiels du travail informel pour les ménages informels de la classe moyenne qui peuvent ne pas être éligibles à l'aide sociale. Ils suggèrent en outre que les travailleurs informels de classe moyenne peuvent avoir une demande solvable d'assurance sociale, de sorte que, si des régimes d'assurance sociale adaptés aux besoins des travailleurs informels leur étaient accessibles, les transferts de fonds pourraient potentiellement être canalisés pour financer l'extension de l'assurance sociale à l'économie informelle.

This paper studies the potential drivers of governments’ approval rates in 18 Latin American countries using Internet search query data from Google Trends and traditional data sources. It employs monthly panel data between January 2006 and December 2015. The analysis tests several specifications including traditional explanatory variables of governments’ approval rates – i.e. inflation, unemployment rate, GDP growth, output gap – and subjective explanatory variables – e.g. perception of corruption and insecurity. For the latter, it uses Internet search query data to proxy citizens’ main social concerns, which are expected to drive governments’ approval rates. The results show that the perception of corruption and insecurity, and complaints about public services have a statistically significant association with governments’ approval rates. This paper also discusses the potential of Internet search query data as a tool for policy makers to understand better citizens’ perceptions, since it provides highly anonymous and high-frequency series in real-time.

A better understanding of how immigrants shape the economy of Costa Rica can help policy makers formulate policies to boost positive effects and mitigate negative effects of immigration. This report finds that immigration has a limited, but varying, economic impact in Costa Rica. Immigration tends to reduce the employment rate of the native-born population, but does not affect labour income. The estimated share of value added generated by immigrants is above their share of the population. In 2013, immigrants’ contribution to the government budget was below that of the native-born population, while expenditures for both groups were similar. Policies aimed at immigrant integration, by increasing de facto access to public services and to the labour market, could enhance immigrants’ economic contribution.  How Immigrants Contribute to Costa Rica's Economy is the result of a project carried out by the OECD Development Centre and the International Labour Organization, with support from the European Union. The project aimed to analyse several economic impacts – on the labour market, economic growth, and public finance – of immigration in ten partner countries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa and Thailand. The empirical evidence stems from a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of secondary and in some cases primary data sources.

This volume collects four studies that were prepared as background research to the 2018 OECD Economic Survey of Costa Rica. Using firm-level, trade and sectorial data, these studies seek to provide insights into the trends in productivity and its determinants in Costa Rica. This volume represents a collaborative effort by a team of researchers from the OECD Secretariat and official agencies of Costa Rica.  

Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development in Costa Rica is the result of a project carried out by the Centro Centroamericano de Población (CCP) at the University of Costa Rica and the OECD Development Centre, in collaboration with the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjeria (DGME) and with support from the European Union. The project aimed to provide policy makers with evidence on the way migration influences specific sectors – the labour market, agriculture, education, investment and financial services and social protection and health – and, in turn, how sectoral policies affect migration. The report addresses four dimensions of the migration cycle: emigration, remittances, return and immigration. The results of the empirical work confirm that migration contributes to the development of Costa Rica, but the potential of migration is not fully exploited. One explanation is that, despite the acknowledgement of the links between migration and development in recent legislation and policy,  policy makers in Costa Rica do not sufficiently take migration into account in all respective policy areas. Costa Rica therefore needs to adopt a more coherent policy agenda to better integrate migration into development strategies, improve co-ordination mechanisms and strengthen international co-operation, to enhance the contribution of migration to development in the country.