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- Adopción del esquema de meta de inflación en Costa RicaThe Organic Law of the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR) article 2, stablishes as its main objectives as ... to maintain the internal and external stability of the national currency and ensure its conversion to other currencies ... (Law 7558, 1995). In this context, internal stability is understood as providing low and stable inflation. During the first decade after this Law was passed (1995-2004) inflation remained in double-digit values (12.4% as an annual average), which contrasts with an average of 4.0% for the inflation of Costa Rica´s main trading partners.
- Análisis cuantitativo de tasas de interés para reemplazar la LiborInternational financial authorities announced that by the end of 2021 the Libor interest rate calculation will be discontinued. This rate is also used for several operations in dollars in the Costa Rican market, therefore financial authorities decided that intermediaries should make their own studies, following best practices, to decide which rate to select as a substitute as a reference in their contracts. However, given the imminent discontinuation of the Libor, an additional challenge arises for the Central Bank of Costa Rica given that articles 52 and 80 of its Law make an explicit reference to the Libor rate for specific operations with the financial system. This paper analyzes the statistical characteristics of a set of interest rates that could eventually substitute the Libor rate. The analysis pays special attention to study cointegration, correlation and differences between the Libor and its possible substitutes. We found that the one-month average for the SOFR rate is the indicator that shows the best statistical properties if compared with the one- and six-month Libor.
- Una aproximación del tipo de cambio real para Costa Rica, enfoque BEER 2007-2022This paper describes the methodology and results of estimating the equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) using the reduced-form approach known as the Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate (BEER). The real exchange rate (RER) equation is estimated with quarterly data in the period between I-2007 and IV-2022, which coincides with the adoption of exchange rate flexibility regimes in Costa Rica. The results indicate that the path of the ERER is explained by the evolution of its fundamentals: labor productivity, government expenditure, international investment position, terms of trade and the difference among local and external interest rates. Improvements in labor productivity, increases in Government spending and increases in the spread of local and external interest rates are correlated with downward movements in the equilibrium path of the RER (real appreciations). On the other hand, the more negative result in the international investment position and a fall in terms of trade explains movements towards real depreciations. During the period of analysis, there is no evidence of RER deviations from its equilibrium level beyond the coherence zone determined. Therefore, the variations on the ERER trajectory are consistent with the behavior of its fundamentals.
- Beneficios intangibles de la Inversión Directa (ID) en Zonas Francas en Costa Rica: Resumen de resultadosThis paper quantifies intangible benefits that arise from the interaction of multinational companies in the Free Trade Zone regime with their workers and with Costa Rican capital companies (domestic). We quantify this by comparing those benefits to the ones of multinationals outside this regime. Specifically, we calculate the increase in productivity that domestic firms experience from supplying multinationals, and the additional salary (or wage premium) experienced by multinational workers compared to what they would have received by working in domestic companies. We find that those new suppliers of multinationals in the Free Trade Zone experience a 23% increase in their productivity during the fourth year after starting the supply relationship, while those that supplied multinationals outside this regime only received a 4% productivity increase. Likewise, the wage premium of the multinational company outside the Free Trade Zone is 8,5%, while the wage premium of multinationals in the Free Trade Zone is 18,4%.
- Cálculo del parámetro de suavizamiento del filtro Hodrick-Prescott para Costa RicaThe Hodrick-Prescott filter decomposes time series in its trend and cycle components. Applications of this filter include the analysis of production or economic activity time series to study business cycles. The filter’s smoothing parameter (λ) varies for each country (Marcet and Ravn 2003). This technical note describes the estimation of the parameter λ for the case of Costa Rica. The values obtained are λ =1 677 for the quarterly series of GDP, λ =15 917 for monthly and λ =26 for yearly. For the monthly economic activity index λ =13 176.
- Capital Inflows in a Small Open Economy: Costa RicaThis document illustrates the inflows of capital to a small and open economy such as Costa Rica using the Metzler Diagram. The simplicity of the Metzler Diagram provides clarity to understand the motivation for the inflows of capital, as well as a framework to analyze the policy options available to the policy-makers.
- Cómputo del coeficiente de Gini para los cantones de Costa RicaI detail the computation for the Gini coefficient for Costa Rican municipalities. I use the regional Gini coefficient computed by the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) and the Economic Variables Record (REVEC) of the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR). With the REVEC I compute the income inequality measure for each municipality using the geographic location inside the country and the information about income. As the REVEC only has information about the formal sector, I use the regional Gini coefficient from the INEC to correct for the potential inequality due to the informal sector. I found that the Gini coefficient of the formal sector for each municipalitiy is between 0,225 and 0,390, whereas the coefficient with the correction for the informal sector is between 0,379 and 0,664. Then, to diminish the informality could reduce inequality. In the ideal case, with cero informality, the inequality level would be similar to the less unequal countries in the OECD.
- Contrafactual: participación de la Zona Franca en la actividad económica costarricenseWe do a computation about the impact of the Free Zone in Costa Rica. We sum the transactions amount due to firms linked to this regime conditioning on the differences for buys and sells between local firms and multinationals (MNCs). Also, we compute and add indirect effects. We use the evidence from Alfaro-Ureña, Manelici y Vásquez (2019) about productivity improvements of local suppliers to MNCs and the evidence from Huertas-Morales, Loaiza-Marín y Ortiz-Coto (2021) about higher linkages of MNCs relative to local firms. This information allow us to compute the counterfactual about how transaction amounts would diminished in Costa Rica without the firms producing in the Free Zone. We compare our results with the “Balance de Zonas Francas” published by Procomer. In general, that Balance states that the importance of the Free Zone in Costa Rica is 6.7% of GDP in 2016, while our proposed computation measures 8.18% of GDP for the same year.
- Control de calidad de las cifras contenidas en una hoja de trabajo ExcelIt is known than Microsoft Excel spredsheet is very useful, and than its main feature is that values or data can be typed or copied from a database to introduce them in the spredsheet. Because these values are used for building economic indicators for political economic analysis and recommendations, it is important to guarantee its accuracy. Therefore, it is necessary to have a Quality Control System that would be able to detect irregular extreme amounts. In this paper several ways to control information are offered with commands included in the Microsoft Excel spredsheet as: AND, OR, NOT, Range, Name, Consolidation, Validation. Some of these features may be used more than other ones, but all of them are presented in one document for an easy and complete consult. Also there are some examples about the system tools using for an automatic spredsheet analysis.
- Control de calidad de los datos en series económicas de tiempoThis technical note studies the command TERROR included in the integrated software TRAMO SEATS, with the aim to illustrate the potential for this application within the context of streamlining and systematization in data audit, therefore improving the quality of the information used in the Economic Divisionand the Central bank to carry out the different calculations and research that this unit develops.Costa Rican official data has been used series in order to assimilate the usefulness of the tool, nevertheless, is recommended to apply this procedure topreliminary data from which “The final statistics” are generated, this would allow for a verification of the data considered suspicious before being used for the elaboration of final products.On the other hand, this study constitutes a contribution from the Economic Research Department to the Economic Division´s Automatization of information systems and process project.