The New Model of Development in Costa Rica

Abstract

Although the Latin American debt crisis is conventionally dated to 1982 (the year of the threatened Mexican default), it struck Costa Rica as early as 1980 when arrears of interests first began to accumulate.¹ In the last seven years there have been a continuous series of adjustment and stabilisation programmes, as Costa Rica has struggled to come to terms with the harsher international and regional climate. These programmes, short-term by nature, have given many the impression that Costa Rica has simply been living in a state of semi-permanent crisis since 1980; in one sense this is true, yet it obscures the fact that Costa Rica has slowly but surely edged towards a new model of economic development in the last few years, which differs both qualitatively and quantitatively from its predecessors.