www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I have wondered a few times what the working girls contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Costa Rica might be. Once I joked that it might be about 50% of the economy.

What the heck. In the spirit of the bestselling book Freakonomics, here are some calculations:

The 2006 estimated GDP for Costa Rica was about 20 billion dollars.

I heard an estimate of 12,000 putas in CR although I think it is low, I'll work with it. Lets say the average girl earns an average of cien a day,
for a total of $36,500 a year. In a country where per cap income is only $5,000 a year, that is good money. Anyway, here are some quick calculations:

12,000 putas X $36,500 per year equals $438,000,000 or not quite half a billion dollars.

So it ain't nowhere near my estimate of their contribution to the Costa Rica GDP of being 50%. It is more like less than 1/20th of the economy. No doubt though, they cause a trade surplus with America although the fact that Walmart is there now this may tip the balance.

So take heart in the fact that when you Pay 2 Play, you are helping solve the economic problems of Costa Rica.

-PA1984

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-PA*

Latest number from the government is 9000 working girls and the cien per day times 365 is way high.

More reasonable numbers would be 9000 x 250 x 50 = 112 million rounded

This may still be a little high but does not factor in their influence on related items (hotel stays, bar tabs, condom sales, ed drugs, etc etc etc)

If I get bored at work I will develop an econmetric model of the working girl economy effect. HMM I wonder if I can get published in the Journal of Economics. (Having flashbacks to my prior life )

Then I can justify moving here as legit research

BKTUNA
I am never going home

You have an interesting point. I was only calculating the GDP impact of the actual cash transactions to the working girls. I would bet that San Jose would be nearly a ghost town as far as tourism goes, if not for the girls. The real GDP impact of the P2P scene might actually be as high as 20% of the overall GDP. Heck, mongers alone probably employ about 500 cabbies. That standard $18 they hit you for at the airport makes ya wonder if someone didn't actually sit down and think "how much will a gringo pay to get to the Del Rey before they start sniveling?"

A really good read the next time any of you mongers boards the plane is the book Freakonomics in which a couple of top notch economists study everything from the impact of abortion on crime to the economics of drug dealing street gangs to sumo wrestling. Excellent reading.

-PA1984

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-PA*

I'm no bean counter but disagree, have you been to SJO during the high season? Sure there's lots of guys doing what we do but the majority of travelers are regular tourists. There's no doubt that we provide a substantial contribution to the GDP but as someone posted before- if prostitution was made illegal there manana the gulch would not really change that much and the HDR would become just another tourist hotel.
An interesting topic, why are we in the smack section?

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Living well is the best revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwUtj_YnNoY

You know I am bored today by this reply but I just threw some numbers together.

Pfizer reported 148,500 cases of Viagara sold in 2005 in Costa Rica..That was up 13% from 2004. Add another 13% for 2006 and the total is around 167,000. Figure 20% of that comes from tourists (Maybe that is high but I have stood in line behind 3 fellow americans waiting in line before). At $8 a pop, thats another $2.1 million in money spent. Now add in cialis and levitra, condoms, and who knows what we spend on our hobby