Costa Rica
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.
This report puts forward policy recommendations for strengthening the performance and sustainability of the health care system in Costa Rica. There is much to praise in Costa Rica’s health care system: institutional stability; a closely integrated but well-differentiated provider arm, with strong primary care; a degree of inter-sectoral co-ordination that serves as a model of good practice; detailed and effective dialogue between users and health service managers; and, innovation around professional roles and the use of ICT that other health systems could learn from. All this leads to health outcomes on a par with several OECD economies. Nevertheless, serious strains are evident: spending is rising steeply, fuelled by salaries, fees and facility payments based on last year’s outlay. These spending increases are not always associated with improvement in services: waiting lists are excessively long and growing. The system is perhaps too stable: institutional rigidity and vested interests have stalled vital reforms, meaning that Costa Rica still lacks systematic application of DRGs and health technology assessment, despite attempts to bring them in.
Costa Rica has recorded many social and economic achievements and currently enjoys one of the highest levels of well-being in the OECD. But progress has come to a standstill in most recent years and challenges have emerged along several social and labour market dimensions. Existing policies are outdated and no longer effective in today’s dynamic, export oriented economy which requires greater flexibility and more high skilled workers. How can Costa Rica better respond to the challenges of technological change and globalisation whilst minimising the transition costs it endures as it moves to a higher and a more sustainable path to inclusive growth? This report provides comprehensive analysis of Costa Rica’s policies and practices compared with best practice in the field of labour, social and migration from across the OECD and other countries in the Latin American region. It contains several recommendations to tackle key challenges facing Costa Rica, including low labour utilisation, increasing inequality, high poverty and high-risk of economic exclusion especially of the low skilled and migrants. This report will be of interest in Costa Rica as well as other countries looking to promote a more dynamic and an inclusive economy.
As Costa Rica’s economy has developed in recent decades, the education system that helped propel the country to upper middle-income status now needs reform to respond to rising expectations and changing demands for skills. New challenges are emerging: economic growth has recently slowed, inequality is widening and productivity growth is weak. How can Costa Rica improve both the quality and equity of its education system while also addressing efficiency challenges? This report assesses Costa Rica’s policies and practices against best practice in education from across the OECD and other reference countries in the Latin American region. It analyses its education system’s major strengths and the challenges it faces, from early childhood education and care to tertiary education. It offers recommendations on how Costa Rica can improve quality and equity to ensure strong, sustainable and inclusive growth. This report will be of interest in Costa Rica as well as other countries looking to raise the quality, equity and efficiency of their education systems.
This report is part of a new series of publications entitled OECD Tax Policy Reviews. These country reviewsare intended to provide independent, comprehensive and comparative assessments of OECD member and non-member countries’ tax systems from a tax policy perspective as well as concrete recommendations for tax policy reform. By benchmarking countries’ tax systems and identifying tailored tax policy reform options, the ultimate objective of the reviews is to enhance the design of existing tax policies and to support the adoption and implementation of tax policy reforms.
This first edition provides a comprehensive tax policy assessment of Costa Rica’s current tax system as well as tax policy reform recommendations. The report is divided into five chapters, starting with a general chapter providing an overview of key macroeconomic and tax revenue trends (Chapter 1), followed by an assessment of the main types of taxes of the Costa Rican tax system, including corporate income taxes (Chapter 2), personal income taxes and social security contributions (Chapter 3), the general sales tax (Chapter 4) and environmentally-related taxes (Chapter 5)
Este informe forma parte de una nueva serie de publicaciones tituladas Análisis de Políticas Fiscales de la OCDE. La serie Análisis de Políticas Fiscales de la OCDE tiene por objeto llevar a cabo evaluaciones independientes, exhaustivas y comparativas de los sistemas fiscales de los países miembros y no miembros de la OCDE, así como presentar recomendaciones concretas en relación con la reforma de la política fiscal de cada país. Mediante la evaluación comparativa de los sistemas tributarios de los países, y la identificación de reformas tributarias concretas hechas a la medida de cada país, el objetivo último de la publicación es mejorar el diseño de las políticas fiscales existentes y respaldar la adopción e implementación de nuevas reformas fiscales.
La primera edición presenta una evaluación integral de la política tributaria de Costa Rica, y ofrece recomendaciones de política fiscal. El informe incluye cinco capítulos, comenzando con un capítulo que ofrece una visión general de las principales tendencias macroeconómicas y de ingresos fiscales del país (Capítulo 1), seguido de una evaluación detallada de cada uno de los principales impuestos del sistema tributario de Costa Rica, incluyendo el impuesto sobre la renta de las sociedades o personas jurídicas (Capítulo 2) el impuesto sobre la renta de los individuos o las personas físicas y las contribuciones al sistema de seguridad social (Capítulo 3), el impuesto general sobre las ventas (Capítulo 4) y los impuestos medioambientales (Capítulo 5).
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.
Interacciones entre Políticas Públicas, Migración y Desarrollo en Costa Rica es el resultado de un proyecto llevado a cabo por el Centro Centroamericano de Población de la Universidad de Costa Rica y el Centro de Desarrollo de la OCDE, en colaboración con la Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (DGME) y con el apoyo de la Comisión Europea. El proyecto tiene como objetivo proporcionar evidencia, a los responsables de la formulación de políticas, sobre la forma en que la migración influye en determinados sectores —el mercado laboral, la agricultura, la educación, la inversión y servicios financieros y la protección social y salud— y, a su vez, cómo las políticas sectoriales afectan la migración. El informe aborda cuatro dimensiones del ciclo migratorio: emigración, remesas, migración de retorno e inmigración.
Los resultados del trabajo empírico confirman que aunque la migración contribuye al desarrollo en Costa Rica, no se aprovecha plenamente todo el potencial de la migración. Una explicación es que aunque las legislaciones recientes son conscientes de los vínculos entre la migración y el desarrollo, los diseñadores de políticas en Costa Rica no toman suficientemente en cuenta la migración en sus respectivas áreas. Por consiguiente, Costa Rica debe adoptar una agenda política más coherente, que integre en mayor medida la migración en las estrategias de desarrollo, mejorar los mecanismos de coordinación y fortalecer la cooperación internacional. Esto reforzaría la contribución de la migración al desarrollo en el país.
Costa Rica’s successful economic performance and social achievements realised over the last three decades are widely acknowledged. GDP per capita has steadily increased at higher rates than in most Latin American countries as the economy has evolved along its development path from a rural and agriculture-based to a more diversified economy integrated in global value chains. But Costa Rica faces challenges and must enhance and broaden the basis for productivity growth by strengthening its innovation system and enhancing the role of science, technology and innovation in addressing its national development goals.
Costa Rica’s strong agricultural sector is underpinned by the country’s political stability, robust economic growth and high levels of human development. The sector has achieved significant export success, yet raising productivity and staying competitive in world markets will require efforts to address bottlenecks in infrastructure, innovation and access to financial services. Maximising Costa Rica’s comparative advantage in higher-value niche products will depend upon more efficient services to agriculture, including better implementation of programmes, improved co-ordination among institutions, and reduced bureaucracy. While overall protection for agriculture is relatively low compared to OECD countries, it is nonetheless highly distorting to production and trade. Managing the transition to scheduled liberalisation presents an opportunity to reform costly policies, and to implement an alternative policy package with new investments in innovation, productivity and diversification, supported by transition assistance where needed. Costa Rican agriculture’s vulnerability to extreme weather events is expected to worsen with climate change, and even while the country is among global leaders in environmental protection, sustainable development and climate change mitigation, further adaptation efforts will be necessary.
Despite an improvement in overall macroeconomic performance in Costa Rica, income inequality has risen and is currently at its maximum historical value. This is in stark contrast with other Latin American countries, which have recently made significant progress in reducing inequality. This study analyses the drivers of inequality in Costa Rica by decomposing the Gini coefficient by income source, finding that the main contributor to inequality in Costa Rica is labour income. In the period 2010-2014, public sector wages made the largest contribution to inequality, in particular wages of qualified workers. Within the public sector, wages of those working in public agencies outside central government contributed the most. Inequality has also been driven by a large and increasing skills premium in the private sector. Workers holding a tertiary degree earn, on average, nearly four times as much as those with only primary education. Social programmes, such as non-contributory pensions, do contribute to reduce inequality but their impact is limited given its small share in households’ total income. The analysis also quantifies the marginal effect on inequality of the different income sources, finding that an increase in wages of low qualified workers in the private sector would have the largest marginal impact to reduce inequality. Conversely, increases in wages of qualified workers in public and private sector would result in the highest increases in inequality.
Costa Rica is one of the first countries to involve the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the state in the design and implementation of its national open government agenda. The OECD Open Government Review of Costa Rica supports the country in its efforts to build a more transparent, participatory, and accountable government as an essential element of its democracy. This review provides an overview of the current national institutions, legal framework, policies and initiatives that underpin the implementation of open government principles, with a focus on policy co-ordination, citizen participation, and open government policies at the local level. It includes a detailed and actionable set of recommendations to help the country achieve its goal of creating an open state.
This 2016 OECD Economic Survey of Costa Rica examines recent economic developments, policies and prospects. The special chapters cover: Inclusive growth and Productivity.
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.
This dataset comprises statistics pertaining to pensions indicators.It includes indicators such as occupational pension funds’asset as a % of GDP, personal pension funds’ asset as a % of GDP, DC pension plans’assets as a % of total assets. Pension fund and plan types are classified according to the OECD classification. Three dimensions cover this classification: pension plan type, definition type and contract type.
The review analyses key areas of public governance in Costa Rica and identifies opportunities to improve the performance of the state in order to ensure more effective and efficient service delivery for all citizens. It examines co-ordination at the centre of government, public policy monitoring and evaluation and the use of the budget framework for strategic planning. It also looks at human resource management, integrity policies and public procurement, and multi-level governance. The review provides recommendations to assist the government in strengthening the capacity of the public sector to support social and economic development.
This report contains the 2014 “Phase 2: Implementation of the Standards in Practice” Global Forum review of Costa Rica.
The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes is the multilateral framework within which work in the area of tax transparency and exchange of information is carried out by over 120 jurisdictions which participate in the work of the Global Forum on an equal footing.
The Global Forum is charged with in-depth monitoring and peer review of the implementation of the standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. These standards are primarily reflected in the 2002 OECD Model Agreement on Exchange of Information on Tax Matters and its commentary, and in Article 26 of the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital and its commentary as updated in 2004, which has been incorporated in the UN Model Tax Convention.
The standards provide for international exchange on request of foreseeably relevant information for the administration or enforcement of the domestic tax laws of a requesting party. “Fishing expeditions” are not authorised, but all foreseeably relevant information must be provided, including bank information and information held by fiduciaries, regardless of the existence of a domestic tax interest or the application of a dual criminality standard.
All members of the Global Forum, as well as jurisdictions identified by the Global Forum as relevant to its work, are being reviewed. This process is undertaken in two phases. Phase 1 reviews assess the quality of a jurisdiction’s legal and regulatory framework for the exchange of information, while Phase 2 reviews look at the practical implementation of that framework. Some Global Forum members are undergoing combined – Phase 1 plus Phase 2 – reviews. The ultimate goal is to help jurisdictions to effectively implement the international standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes.