Filling the Gap in Historical Statistics: Macroeconomic Indicators of the Debt Burden of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during Great Depression

Abstract

The subject matter of this paper are specific causes of sovereign debt default of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1932. In the first part of the paper, time series of public debt, with the subcategories of domestic and foreign public debt, for the period from 1929 to 1939, were constructed on the basis of data from Statistical Yearbooks of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the League of Nations. In the second part of the paper, the sustainability of public debt of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia has been measured with help of relevant macroeconomic indicators: public debt-to-GDP ratio and debt service-to-public revenue ratio. In the third part of the paper, decomposition of public debt data has been made with respect to the methodology used in Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This decomposition has shown that public debt accumulation had to do little if anything with the Great Depression and was to a large extent caused by political, economic and financial consequences of the Great War.