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Liberia's External Debts and their Servicing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Robert L. Curry Jr
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, California State University, Sacramento, and formerly at Cuttington College, Liberia

Extract

A recent article in this Journal, X, I, May 1972, by Robert E. Miller and Peter R. Carter on ‘A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Liberia’, examined the general cost pattern inherent in concession agreements based upon her ‘Open-Door Policy’, and noted that ‘officials of the Government of Liberia who are responsible for negotiating foreign concessionaire agreements… now recognise this pattern and hopefully plan better bargains in the future’. I wish to focus attention on Liberia's external debts, a particular cost largely resulting from that policy.

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 621 note 1 Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Balance of Payments: Report No. 3 (Monrovia, 1955), p. 8Google Scholar; and United Nations, Supplement to the World Trade Annual, vol. III, Africa (New York, 1964), pp. 612–3.Google Scholar

Page 621 note 2 Department of Planning and Economic Affairs, Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of Liberia (Monrovia), 03 1970, p. 42.Google Scholar

Page 621 note 3 Ibid. pp. 22–4.

Page 621 note 4 Curry, Robert L. Jr, ‘Agricultural Land Development in Liberia’, in The Journal of International Law and Economics (Washington), VI, I, 06 1971, pp. 127–31.Google Scholar

Page 622 note 1 Sources: Department of Planning and Economic Affairs, Income of Liberia, 1966 (Monrovia, 1967), pp. 20–1Google Scholar; Glower, Robertet al., Growth Without Development (Evanston, 1966), p. 48Google Scholar; and Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of Liberia, 08 1971, pp. 1822.Google Scholar

Page 622 note 2 Cole, Henry B. and Cassell, A. B., Liberian Trade and Industry Handbook (Monrovia, 1970), p. 113.Google Scholar

Page 622 note 3 For a complete analysis of the country's tax structure, see Shoup, Carl S.et al., The Tax System of Liberia (New York, 1969), chs. 18.Google Scholar

Page 623 note 1 Sources: the same as for Table I.

Page 623 note 2 Sources: Department of Planning and Economic Affairs, Public Sector Accounts (Monrovia, 1968), pts. 14Google Scholar; and Economic Survey of Liberia, 1970, p. 41.Google Scholar

Page 624 note 1 Sources: I.B.R.D., Direction of International Trade: Annual, 1966–1970 (Washington, 1971), p. 5Google ScholarUnited Nations, Yearbook of International Trade Statistics (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; and Economic Survey of Liberia, 1970.

Page 624 note 2 Cf. Mitra, Pijush Kanti, ‘Debt-Servicing in Developing Countries’, in The Journal of World Trade Law (Geneva), VI, 3, 0506 1971, pp. 388–91.Google Scholar

Page 625 note 1 Source: Economic Survey of Liberia, 1970, pp. 37, 41, and 43.Google Scholar

Page 625 note 2 Carl Shoup et al, op. cit. p. 76.

Page 625 note 3 It is important to note here that approximately 30 per cent of Liberia's gross domestic product from 1964–70 went to net resource payments abroad, including debt-servicing; see Economic Survey of Liberia, 1970, ch. 2Google Scholar. The return to non-Liberian capital and labour resources averaged only 38 per cent of all the returns to iron ore mining from 1964–70; see Ibid. and Quarterly Statistical Bulletin of Liberia, March 1970, passim.

Page 626 note 1 U.N.C.T.A.D., Report on Restrictive Business Practices (Geneva, 1972), TD/122/Supplement I, pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

Page 626 note 2 Carl Shoup et al., op. cit. p. 71. A full analysis of a per unit tax is beyond the scope of this brief note, but see The Tax System of Liberia, pp. 70–4, for the usefulness of this alternative.