"The best that can be said for the Scottish Government’s new economic paper for Scottish independence, Building a New Scotland: A stronger economy…, is that it does not include some of the more hideous ideas contained within the Growth Commission report. "
"Transitioning out of Sterlingisation would be no easy task. To understand this, we first need to grasp the structural vulnerability inherent to being an independent state without monetary powers:
In part 1, I explore a recent paper on the vulnerabilities of sterlingisation to highlight what the key problems would be.
In Part 2, I look at how transition to a Scottish currency on the basis proposed in this paper would be extremely difficult.
In Part 3, I briefly examine the case of dollarised Ecuador, and how an attempt to escape dollarisation in that Latin American nation never got off the ground.
Finally, in Part 4, I look at what the disastrous UK Government ‘mini-budget’ should and shouldn’t teach us about monetary policy, fiscal policy and financial markets."
"The Scottish independence movement – the vast majority of whom back a Scottish currency – should continue to loudly make that case and apply pressure on the Scottish Government until it sees sense. A Scottish currency is no guarantee that independence would see the country’s deeply embedded economic problems tackled. A monetarily sovereign independent government would still be perfectly capable of chronic mismanagement. But to have an independent country with a fighting chance of making even partial economic and social progress, monetary sovereignty is a pre-requisite. Another Scotland is still possible."