Economist Richard Ran: Bulgaria Will Survive Financial Crisis

Business » FINANCE | November 11, 2011, Friday // 12:46
Bulgaria: Economist Richard Ran: Bulgaria Will Survive Financial Crisis File photo of US economist Richard Rahn

Bulgaria will be "among the survivors" of the global financial crisis, US economist Richard Rahn believes.

"Bulgaria is currently in a much better position than many other countries and has a much smaller debt. Furthermore, it makes much larger budget spending restrictions. That is why I believe it will be among the survivors," Rahn stated in an interview for the Bulgarian 24 Chasa daily.

According to Rahn, Bulgaria can serve as a good example for countries like the US in terms of budget spending. He also expressed his concern over what he believed was irrational spending on behalf of many EU countries.

"The balance should be achieved by cutting spending and not by increasing taxes," the economist pointed out.

Upon asked about the strategy for Bulgaria's transition towards a market economy that he drafted in 1990, Rahn reminded that many of his ideas were not adopted by the Bulgarian government back then.

"The bigger part of our program was not applied until 1997. If I were an economic wizard and had started the changes in the first months after 1989, I believe that things would have developed in a better way. You would have avoided the inflation," Rahn commented on Bulgaria's implementation of the strategy which he and Ronald Utt, then Executive Vice President of the US National Chamber Foundation, spearheaded in the early 1990s.

Rahn added that he had suggested a currency board for Bulgaria as early as 1990, but it adopted it in 1997. He also admitted that he had underestimated the scale of corruption in the Balkan country.

Richard Rahn is currently chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth, an organization that assists nations in implementing supply-side or "pro-growth" reforms.

According to his profile on the IGEG website he is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, sits on the boards of numerous think-tanks and advocacy groups, and has testified on economic issues before the U.S. Congress over seventy-five times

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Tags: budget spending, richard rahn, Bulgaria, budget, Economist, crisis, EU, taxes

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