Poland Climbs, Hungary Slips

LOOKING BACK ON his career as one of Poland's most prominent economists and political leaders, Leszek Balcerowicz offered a succinct lesson for policymakers everywhere.

- Eric Boehm

"Most problems are the result of bad politics," he told The Wall Street Journal in 2012. Democratic systems are beset by interest groups trying to expand state power for financial and ideological reasons, he explained. "Even if they are angels in the government, which is not the case, if there is not a counterbalance in the form of proponents of limited government, then there will be a shift toward more statism and ultimately into stagnation and crisis."

Balcerowicz's guidance as prime minister helped pull Poland out of the stagnation and crisis of communism after 1989. Two decades after he pioneered a "shock therapy" approach to liberalizing and privatizing the country's economy, Poland managed to be the only country in Europe that avoided a recession during the 20082009 economic crisis.