Assorted Links

1. Reuters writes that "Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko vowed on Thursday to call people onto the streets in a second "Orange Revolution" even fiercer than that of 2004, if rival Viktor Yanukovich tried to rig Sunday's vote for president". What can I say? First, it's not the first time when the incumbent PM Tymoshenko uses a scare-everyone-to-hell strategy (e.g. the Swine Flu outbreak). Second, how can Mr. Yanukovich rig votes if he does not have the so-called adminresource. In other words, you can't rig votes if you are not in power.
   
2. The Christian Science Monitor's Fred Weir writes that "Ukraine votes Feb. 7 in a runoff between bitter rivals Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych that some say could destabilize the democratic process". Several economists such as Dr. Acemoglu, Dr. Johnson, and Dr. Robinson (AJR) would agree that a status quo change in de jure distribution of political power would cause a status quo change in de facto distribution of political and economic power. So far Ukraine's post-socialist political and economic development shows that de facto institutions cause a change in de jure institutions.
   
3. Finally, here is much more interesting piece of news. The BusinessWeek's Halia Pavliva writes that "Ukraine will seek to borrow $500 million to $1 billion by selling Eurobonds as early as next quarter, Economy Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn said, as Europe's hardest hit economy looks for ways to restructure its debt". That's a great point because Ukraine's current debt is a serious economic problem. But I would respectfully disagree that Ukraine is Europe's hardest hit economy. What about the Baltic trinity? Well, they are at least the consolidated democracies so we can leave them alone for now. What about Russia? It was hit really hard by the global economic crisis. Btw, what is happening to Russia's ginormous stabilization fund?