Recalling the collapse of RBS, Tyler Cowen suggests that Scottish independence might not be such a nifty notion:
That’s a pretty widely-held view and it is not, I think, wholly coincidental that Alex Salmond discovered* the apparently unlimited potential of renewable energy at roughly the same time banking began to seem a less useful foundation for future prosperity.The conceptual point is simple. If you think that the world is now more prone to financial crises (and I do), the optimal size for a nation-state has gone up. Risk-sharing really matters.
Risk-sharing**, however, is at the heart of it. It was the main reason why the SNP became a pro-EU party. Sovereignty would be pooled in Brussels, not in London and you could plausibly claim that Brussels-London-Edinburgh was too long an address and so it made sense to cut out the middle-man.
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