Costa Rica: Technical Assistance Report-Macroprudential Policy and Modeling

This technical assistance project on macroprudential policy and modeling, which took place in August 2012, provided advice to the Costa Rican authorities on improving the institutional arrangements for conducting macroprudential policy, while also assessing the preconditions for dynamic loan-loss provisioning and improving the central bank’s macroeconomic projection model. Based on its analyses, the mission team specifically recommended establishing a financial stability unit in the central bank to strengthen systemic risk analysis, strengthening the coordination between supervisory agencies, enhancing the central bank’s quarterly macroeconomic projection model by integrating financial sector frictions and other elements, taking specific measures to enhance financial sector regulation, adopting a dynamic loan-loss provisioning to offset rising provisioning cost during economic downturns, and implementing specific macroprudential tools and policies to address financial system risks.