Gradual Economic Reform in Latin America: The Costa Rican Experience. By Mary A. Clark. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 198p. $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper

Extract

The central proposition advanced in this book is that incremental reform along neoliberal lines works. In Costa Rica, a slow-paced program of macroeconomic stabilization, fiscal cutbacks, economic deregulation, tax incentives for exporters, cessation of agricultural subsidies, and selected privatizations yielded “generally positive results” (p. 105). The economy recovered rapidly from the 1980s crisis and poverty rates fell back to precrisis levels, while the country's democratic stability was never in danger.