This
package of 10 country-specific text files contains the supporting data for
Peter H. Lindert and Peter J. Morton, “How Sovereign Debt Has Worked” in Jeffrey Sachs (ed.), Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance (NBER and
University of Chicago Press, 1989).
Lindert and Morton are
grateful to Rui Esteves of
UC Berkeley for transferring these converted Word files to us, October 2005.
Some brief explanations of what the data represent:
LOAN TITLE:
Self-explanatory
INITIAL YEAR:
The year in which the loan is made.
LIMIT YEAR:
A year after which we stopped recording information about the loan. This
may be because the loan was fully repaid, irretrievably defaulted, or still alive
as of 1983, the last year of our sample. (For the purpose of
calculating rates of return we assumed that loans still alive in 1983 were paid
off at par in that year.)
INTEREST RATE:
This is the coupon rate, not the effective rate.
CURRENCY TRANSACTED: The currency in which service was due. In
cases where the bondholders had an option to receive service in one of several
different currencies, we usually designated pound sterling as the currency of
service.
0 = ENGLISH POUNDS
1 = AMERICAN DOLLARS”
2 = FRENCH FRANCS”
3 = SWISS FRANCS”
4 = GERMAN MARKS”
5 = ITALIAN LIRE”
6 = SPANISH PESETAS”
7 = DUTCH GUILDERS”
8 = RUSSIAN ROUBLES”
9 = GOLD (USE WITH CAUTION)”
CURRENCY OF ACCOUNT:
Some source compendia would pre-convert all figures to, say, pounds sterling, even for loans which were serviceable in
other currencies. In a case like this the currency transacted might be French
Francs, but the “Currency of Account” would be Pound Sterling.
POWER OF 10:
Self-explanatory
BORROWER TYPE:
S = SUBORDINATE REGIONAL GOV’T (PROVINCE, STATE, ETC.)
M = MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT”
R = RAILROAD OR OTHER TRANSPORT LINE
P = PUBLIC UTILITY (AVOID WHERE POSSIBLE)”
Q = QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL BODY (IE,
N = NATIONAL BANK (OR
OTHER GOV’T RUN BANK)”
SOURCE CITATIONS:
PAGE REFERENCE FROM FENN (1873)
PAGE REFERENCE FROM FENN (1889)
PAGE REFERENCE FROM FENN (1898)
PAGE REFERENCE FROM FITCH (1918)
PAGE REFERENCE FROM KIMBER (1925)
PAGE REFERENCE FROM KIMBER (1933)
YEAR
REFERENCE FROM C.F.B.H.
YEAR REFERENCE FROM F.B.P.C.
SIMPLE/COMPLEX:
A loan paid as agreed which had no change in the coupon interest rate or
in the retirement schedule was considered simple. Other loans with
discontinuities of one sort or another were considered complex.
BUYBACK RATE ESTIMATE: When a too-rapid decline in the reported
balance outstanding made us suspicious that countries were buying back debt
below par in the open market, we could iterate a “buyback price” designed to
let us hit a target amount outstanding in a particular year. When the decline
in the reported balance outstanding was too rapid, we simply assumed that the
sinking fund was not being fully served. (For this reason, you may note that
for some loans, the decline in the amount outstanding does not match the
reported retirement cash flow.)
# OF CHANGES DECLARED: Basically the number of discontinuities we
were able to account for during the life of the loan. You may safely disregard
the -1 value entered here for simple loans. It had some significance internally
for the data entry program we used in the 1980s, but for practical purposes the
only meaning is “no changes”.
BALANCE PAID OFF IN LIMIT YEAR? As mentioned above, this feature
allowed us to assume a hypothetical lump-sum payoff for the purpose of
calculating rates of return and net present value.
METHOD OF ESTABLISHING ANNUITY: Basically there were three options
for determining the amount of the annual service:
(a)The source material directly provided an annual figure.
(b)The source material specified a sinking fund in percentage
terms.
(c)The source material specified the coupon rate and the payoff
date.
THE REST OF THE STORY: This space was available for the operator
to add comments.
OPTIONAL COMMENTS: This space was available for the operator to
add more comments.
OPERATOR: Wendy is Wendy Eudey, Peter is usually Peter M., except for
UNASSIGNED: This has no meaning.
YEAR: Self-explanatory.
CAPFLOW: Any lump-sum non-recurring payment between the lender and
the borrower. This would include the initial proceeds of the loan, any large
once-only retirement of principal, conversion to a new funding loan, or a
fictitious payoff in the limit year.
OUTST: This is the face amount of outstanding debt at the end of
the year.
INTEREST: This should always equal the coupon rate times the
amount outstanding at the end of the previous year.
RETIRED: The amount actually paid to the creditors to retire
principal. If the buyback rate estimate is equal to one, it should match the
difference between last year’s outstanding amount and the current year’s
outstanding amount.