Let me restate and possibly clarify the points from yesterday’s column:

Declaring Scotland independent would mean a big disruption of existing economic and financial arrangements. As Simon Wren-Lewis says, the preponderance of professional economic opinion is that this disruption would leave Scotland worse off, but that is a point we can argue. However, that is not the argument the independence movement is making; what they have been telling voters is that there would be no disruption — in particular, that Scots could continue using the pound, and that this would pose no problem.

This is an astonishing claim to make at this point in history. Economists (starting with my late colleague and friend Peter Kenen) have long argued that sharing a currency without fiscal integration is problematic; the creation of the euro put that theory to the test. And the results have been far worse than even the harshest critics of the euro imagined, with euro Europe doing worse at this point than Western Europe did in the 1930s:

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And an independent Scotland using the British pound would arguably be in even worse shape. Europe has somewhat stabilized recently thanks to Mario Draghi’s support for debtor countries — but Draghi is able to do this, in large part, because he is answerable to the whole euro area, not just Germany. An independent Scotland would be dependent on the kindness of the Bank of, um, England, with no say whatsoever in that bank’s policy.

I’ve read quite a lot of the independence literature, and it shows no appreciation for the dangers involved. What Scottish voters should do is look hard at the experience, just across the North Sea, of divorcing currency from statehood; it’s not encouraging.