Anders Aslund: Ukraine needs responsible public finances now
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyk hugs Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko in Verkhovna Rada on Sept.17 after the government's debt restructuring was approved by the parliament.
With increasing surprise, I follow the Ukrainian discussion about public finances. Strangely, some prominent Ukrainians seem to think that taxes and public expenditures have no relationship to one another, arguing that public expenditures should be increased and taxes should be cut. But that is called populism, the disease Ukraine has suffered from since its independence in 1991, and which has caused Ukraine's steady economic decline.
