Productive Development Policies in Costa Rica: Market Failures, Government Failures, and Policy Outcomes

Ricardo Monge-Gonzalez, Luis Rivera and Julio Rosales-Tijerino

No 4657, Research Department Publications from Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department

Abstract: 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, the policy instruments applied are not necessarily the most economically efficient but rather the most politically feasible options. In addition, the lack of policy evaluation and monitoring prevents adjustments and corrections of such policies. Addressing the arguments for policy intervention and incorporating the results of evaluation into policy design and reform are necessary conditions for success. In spite of positive policy outcomes, limitations to enhance competitiveness and create the conditions for productivity growth are still present. An umbrella approach in the case of those PDPs that reinforce each other is necessary for productivity growth.

Keywords: Policy Analysis; Policy Making; Industrial Policy; Costa Rica (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 L52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=I ... me=pubIDB-WP-157.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=IDB-WP-157&pub_file_name=pubIDB-WP-157.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=IDB-WP-157&pub_file_name=pubIDB-WP-157.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:wpaper:4657

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Department Publications from Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Felipe Herrera Library ().