Joint Implementation (JI) is a potentially powerful instrument of climate policy that could lead to a high amount of additional financial flows to developing countries. Nevertheless, many NGOs and developing country representatives are very skeptical about JI and fear that it would not take into...

This article addresses the question of how Brazil, Costa Rica, and Colombia came to decide on their climate change mitigation strategies, which are based on market-oriented policies. The analysis compares Brazilian bioethanol, Costa Rican renewable energy, and Colombia's clean development...

In the 2000s, Costa Rica experienced moderate economic growth and a general improvement in labour market conditions. From 2000 to 2012, Costa Rica grew at the Latin American average. Most labour market indicators improved during 2001 - 09 and 2010 - 12 (the series with comparable data). However,...

Costa Rica has managed to combine an active agenda in the Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTNs) at the WTO with the negotiation of several Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Such PTAs, most notably those with the US, China and the EU, will boost the share of total exports benefiting from...

In spite of deep structural reforms, Central American countries have failed to experience rapid and stable growth in recent years. This paper explores whether and to what extent we can consider lack of innovation and technology adoption as a main reason for this disappointing experience. The...

This study assesses macroeconomic volatility in Costa Rica, based largely on politically weak governments` inability or unwillingness to effect key reforms. Notable problems include volatility-prone fiscal and monetary policy, structurally weak public finances due to large domestic debts and...

Conditional transfer programs are becoming a common approach to influence household decisions. The evidence to date is that these programs are good at promoting certain outcomes such as school attendance, but that other outcomes such as reducing child labor are more difficult to achieve. This...

This paper examines the microeconomic interventions used to complement Washington Consensus reforms in Latin America. It maintains that the kind of interventions currently in vogue in most countries lack a sound theoretical and empirical foundation or are applied in a manner likely to prove...

This paper addresses the relationships between innovation, research and development (R&D) and productivity in domestic ICT firms in Costa Rica. Factors considered were the types of innovation outputs produced by domestic ICT firms, the relative importance of innovation inputs, the impacts of...

This paper analyzes five Productive Development Policies (PDPs) implemented in Costa Rica, finding that they are not optimally addressing market failures. Moreover, government failures rather than market failures represent the main justification for PDPs. Even in the presence of market failures,...