Brilliant!

(Thanks for the link, Walt.)

As he looked into the abyss, President Petar Stoyanov decided against taking the plunge and appointed me as his advisor in January 1997. I immediately prescribed a currency board system to put an end to Bulgaria’s malady, something I had laid out for Bulgaria back in 1991 (Steve H. Hanke and Kurt Schuler, Teeth for the Bulgarian Lev: A Currency Board Solution. Washington, D.C.: International Freedom Foundation, 1991.).

Bulgaria installed a currency board in July 1997. The lev was backed 100% by German marks and traded freely at a fixed rate of 1000 leva to 1 mark. Inflation and interest rates fell like stones. The economy stabilized, and the Bulgarians learned that, even though stability might not be everything, everything is nothing without stability. Discipline at last.

Yes, the main feature of a currency board is the fiscal and financial discipline that it provides. No more running to the central bank for a fiscal bailout. A currency board ties the hands of those meddlesome monetary authorities. And forget the silly theoretical and obscure arguments made by economists who don’t embrace fixed exchange rates. A currency board regime is all about discipline.

http://www.cato.org/blog/bulgarias-currency-board-versus-ukraines-chaos