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Migration and Constitutional Change – David Bell, Allan Findlay and David...
(This blog comprises part of the presentation that we will be giving at the International Conference on the Economics of Constitutional Change at Dalmahoy on the 19th and 20th of September – Twitter...
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Constitutional change and inequality in Scotland – David Bell, David...
Inequality and social justice are playing a central role in the debate around Scottish independence. In “Scotland’s Economy: the Case for Independence”, the Scottish Government asserts that the UK...
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International Conference on the Economics of Constitutional Change
The International Conference on the Economics of Constitutional Change, held in Edinburgh on the 19th and 20th of September 2013, brought together leading academics and policy makers to review the...
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Estimating Scotland’s spending needs
This blog describes recent research which estimates Scotland’s relative spending need for devolved public services to be about 6% higher than for the UK as a whole. It has long been recognised that...
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Inequality in Scotland
The full version of our paper looking at trends in inequality can be found here: Inequality in Scotland
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Scotland’s long-term fiscal prospects: latest IFS analysis
The Institute for Fiscal Studies often upsets governments by not agreeing with their policy prescriptions or with their view of the future. So the recent analysis of Scotland’s fiscal prospects by the...
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The White Paper vs the IFS
Many of the questions, both actually asked in the press conference, and hypothetically asked in the Q&A in Part 5 of the White Paper, drew a comparison between the optimistic assessment of...
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Debt – More Clarity Needed
Did the White Paper on Scottish independence need to be so long? It arrived on my desk with a resounding thud and I wondered whether we were supposed to judge it on its physical or intellectual weight....
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Working age welfare benefits, personal taxation, and the labour market: White...
Scotland’s Future describes an ambitious vision for tax and welfare policy in an independent Scotland. Welfare and taxation policies will be better integrated with education, health and employability...
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Scottish Independence: Debt and Assets
The level of debt and how an independent Scottish Government would deal with it is a hugely important issue. Given that it is currently running a deficit – its spending exceeds its tax revenue –...
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Debt – the first move (published in the Scottish Sun 15/1/2014)
The UK Government has just announced that it will honour its debts. It has done so since before Charles II lost his head, so why did it need to make this announcement? Because it claims that those who...
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The Scottish Independence Podcast
Just a short blog-post to provide a link to my interview with Michael Greenwell of the Scottish Independence podcast. This is no.46 in Michael Greenwell’s series of interviews which are largely from a...
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Call for Papers: Country Size and Border Effects in a Globalised World
We are pleased to announce that SIRE and the School of Economics at the University of Edinburgh will host a two-day workshop on ‘Country Size and Border Effects in a Globalised World’ on June 26 and...
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Tackling income inequality presents challenges for Scotland
Scotland faces significant challenges in closing its “inequality gap”, according to new research carried out by University of Stirling academics and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council...
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The economics of Scotland’s currency choices, by Ronald MacDonald
The recent decision by all of the major unionist parties to rule out an independent Scotland participating in a sterling monetary union has created much political heat. So much so, that there is a...
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The Ageing Population Problem
After the release of our paper, Funding Pensions in Scotland: Would Independence Matter?, I was called to the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster to give evidence. The most interesting issue that...
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The 50p tax rate and inequality
Alex Salmond has twice this week refused to commit to re-introducing the 50p rate of income tax on incomes over £150,000 – first following his New Statesman lecture in London, and then at First...
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Budget 2014: distributional implications
Speaking before Budget 2014, John Swinney declared the Budget was the Westminster Government’s ‘last chance to seriously tackle inequality’. Early in his Budget speech, George Osborne argued that...
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Scottish Labour’s devolution proposals: analysis
David Bell and David Eiser The Scottish Labour Party has proposed further powers for the Scottish Parliament. They are perhaps not as radical as might have been expected, but the argument is that...
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The future costs of the State Pension
David Eiser, David Bell and David Comerford Nicola Sturgeon and James Naughtie had an interesting debate on funding pensions in an independent Scotland on GMS this morning (available here). The debate...
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