Costa Rica

Costa Rica: strong, sustained growth, 1980–2025

A stable democracy that abolished its military in 1948, Costa Rica built a services- and technology-manufacturing-oriented economy alongside globally recognized ecotourism, avoiding many of the crises common to its neighbors. Between 1980 and 2025, Costa Rica's GDP per capita grew from $2,021 to $19,970 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 5.2% — strong, sustained growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 3.8% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 3.0 points, reflecting relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 17.8% to 3.4% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 55.2% to 69.2% of GDP, underscoring a shift toward a services-driven economy. On human development, life expectancy rose from 73.0 to 81.0 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 25.8% to 55.0%, while the urban population share grew from 42.9% to 79.7%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 1.04 to 1.63 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) narrowed from 47.5 to 45.5; the poverty headcount ratio fell from 33.5% to 0.8%.