Europe under strain: political extremism aspects

[Firn]

Scottish independence: Cameron, Clegg and Miliband make Scotland 'No' vote plea

It is quite possible the great recession is having a big impact on the Scottish referendum. Much of the economic policies of the current government have been terrible and of counter-productive austerity but this is, if painful and still relevant, old news. Simon Wren-Lewis offers an interesting perspective:

As far as I know there has been no compelling new evidence that has emerged between these two dates, so the obvious inference is that as people have become more exposed to the economic arguments, they have found the pro-independence side more convincing.

At one level this seems odd, because for me the evidence that Scotland will be worse off for at least the first decade of independence seems pretty clear. The fiscal position of an independent Scotland also looks worse, as the highly respected and impartial IFS explain. These views seem to be shared by a large majority of UK economists: here is the CFM survey of mainly academic economists selected for their macroeconomic expertise. Now this survey is more equivocal about whether the UK is right to rule out currency union, but again the general view is that in such a monetary union Scotland would face severe fiscal constraints.

I'm convinced by those arguments, but as Simon puts it a large share of the public doesn't seem to be or doesn't know those. For many the future seems to look brighter as nation. I mentioned during the discussion about the Crimean economy that severing the deep, intricate ties to Ukraine and attaching new ones will be painful for both Russian and the annexed territory. Now we won't seen anything that extreme for obvious reasons but at least in the short run a 'yes' would mean considerable economic stress and friction.