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Books and Analytical Papers > IMF Staff Country Reports

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Costa Rica: Sixth Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Third Review Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility Arrangement, and Monetary Policy Consultation Clause
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper presents Costa Rica’s Sixth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility, Third Review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility Arrangement, and Monetary Policy Consultation Clause. The authorities continue to make important progress on Costa Rica’s economic reform agenda. Going forward, the authorities should focus on institutionalizing the impressive progress over the past three years and sustaining reform momentum. The supervisory authorities should continue to enhance their toolkits to strengthen financial sector resilience. A recently submitted bill to amend the bank resolution and deposit insurance law would help strengthen the crisis management framework and the financial safety net and should be approved quickly. Keeping the momentum of structural reforms is critical to achieving greener and more inclusive growth. The new social assistance single window is increasing the quality of social spending. It is critical for the public employment bill to be fully implemented by all affected institutions.
Keywords:
RSF arrangement; IMF Resilience and Sustainability Facility arrangement; RSF reform measure; Costa Rican authority; headline inflation; economic reform program; Credit; International reserves; Public sector; Global; Central America
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Costa Rica: 2023 Article IV Consultation, Fifth Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Second Review Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, and Request for Modification of Reform Measure
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper discusses Costa Rica’s 2023 Article IV Consultation, Fifth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Second Review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), and Request for Modification of Reform Measure. Costa Rica is reaping the benefits from the home-grown reform program. In order to institutionalize progress, it is critical to continue adhering to the existing fiscal framework, restrain foreign exchange intervention, ensure compliance with the Public Employment Law, and restart central bank autonomy and governance reform. The authorities should continue pursuing improvements to the central bank’s governance and autonomy. While the central bank is conducting monetary policy in an independent manner, these practices should be institutionalized through legislation. It is critical that the central bank’s autonomy and other areas of improvements recommended in the 2020 Safeguards Assessment that remain unaddressed be followed up in a steadfast manner. Performance under the EFF and the RSF arrangements remains strong. All quantitative performance criteria have been met for this review, although the June Indicative Target on public debt was exceeded as the government took advantage of favorable market conditions to build liquidity buffers.
Keywords:
RSF arrangement; FX operations; IMF Resilience and Sustainability Facility arrangement; climate change resilience recovery; headline inflation; decarbonization effort; Climate change; External sector statistics; Government finance statistics; Inflation; Central America; Global; Caribbean
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Costa Rica: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on the neutral interest rate in Costa Rica. Estimates of Costa Rica’s real natural rate of interest are between 0 and 3 percent, with a suite of semistructural and univariate methods reaffirming this conclusion at close to 1 percent. This toolkit of multiple differing methods accounts for characteristics of the Costa Rican economy and suggests current monetary policy remains restrictive. Univariate estimates for Costa Rica are between those for the United States and largest regional peers. Structural changes to the Costa Rican economy, particularly in recent years, have important implications for the movement in the neutral rate. A suite of univariate methods also reaffirms this conclusion and suggests current monetary policy remains restrictive. Estimates for Costa Rica are between the United States and 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, which currently appear to have neutral rates above 2 percent but above the United States.
Keywords:
labor market characteristic; refugees in Costa rica; estimation uncertainty; neutral real interest rate; card payment fee; Real interest rates; Migration; Labor markets; Social assistance spending; Caribbean
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Brazil: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on challenges and options for reform in Brazil. This paper discusses options to build on the new fiscal rule and enhance the fiscal framework. The new rule’s focus on revenues carries important implementation risks, and consolidation that is more ambitious is needed to achieve a downward debt path. Building on Brazil’s and cross-country experience with fiscal frameworks, this paper proposes options to build on the new fiscal rule and enhance the fiscal framework. The new proposed fiscal rule addresses important priorities of the new government and offers opportunities for gradual fiscal consolidation over an extended horizon, but important challenges remain. There is scope to shape a more comprehensive and integrated fiscal framework, leveraging specific advantages of rules. Further considerations to refine the proposed new fiscal rule include ensuring consistency of the spending rule and the primary balance targets, while making t