{"id":758,"date":"2014-01-24T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T07:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/?p=758"},"modified":"2014-01-23T11:56:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T11:56:12","slug":"economics-of-scottish-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/economics-of-scottish-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics of Scottish independence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Professor<\/a>

Professor John Curtice<\/p><\/div>\n

John Curtice reviews the polls. He finds that most indicators continue to suggest that the verdict will be No and argues that although the debate will range far and wide in the coming months, the victory will ultimately go to the side that presents the most convincing economic argument. This blog was republished from\u00a0LSE British Politics and Policy<\/a>\u00a0blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the campaigning is finally over, the final decision about Scotland\u2019s constitutional future will lie in voters\u2019 hands, as they cast their ballots on the 18th\u00a0September this year.<\/p>\n

At the moment it looks as though their verdict will be No. Only one of the\u00a028 Scotland-wide polls<\/a>\u00a0of referendum voting intentions conducted to date has put the Yes side ahead \u2013 and that poll (conducted for the SNP)\u00a0was widely criticised\u00a0<\/a>for prefacing its questions with a couple that appeared to lead respondents in a pro-independence direction. Once those who say Don\u2019t Know are put to one side (typically some 15% or so of respondents), then across\u00a0all polls<\/a>\u00a0conducted in the last three months the Yes tally has averaged 39%, the No score, 61%. In truth has been pretty much the picture throughout the whole of the last year.<\/p>\n

However, although the polls have been stable, they have also been inconsistent. One company, Panelbase, has repeatedly put support for Yes at 44% or 45% (once the Don\u2019t Knows are left aside). In contrast, in Ipsos MORI\u2019s polls, for example, support for independence has ranged between just 34% and 38%. Inevitably such a persistent discrepancy creates some uncertainty about exactly how far No are ahead.<\/p>\n

Moreover, there are some signs that the publication at the end of November of the\u00a0Scottish Government\u2019s White Paper<\/a>\u00a0laying out is prospectus for independence may have helped\u00a0increase the Yes vote by two points or so<\/a>. We await the evidence of further polls to see whether this apparent boost for the nationalist cause has survived the Christmas and New Year campaigning lull.<\/p>\n

How might the Yes side make the further, more substantial progress that they would appear to need? Almost undoubtedly only by persuading Scots that independence would make their nation more prosperous.<\/p>\n

No other perception of what independence might bring is more closely linked to whether people say they will vote Yes or No. For example in one ICM poll, 87% of those who thought independence would be good for Scotland\u2019s economy (and had a clear voting intention) indicated they would vote Yes. The equivalent figure amongst those who thought independence would be bad economically was just 4%.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the Yes side, a majority of Scots are yet to be convinced that independence would actually bring about prosperity.\u00a0 According to YouGov, just 26% are of that view, while 48% believe the country would be worse off.\u00a0 TNS BMRB similarly report that only 23% think Scotland\u2019s economy would perform better under independence, while 45% believe its performance would be worse. Even Panelbase find that only 32% think that Scotland would be financially better off as an independent country while 44% believe it would be worse off.<\/p>\n

The debate about Scottish independence will range far and wide in the next nine months as the nation contemplates two alternative futures. But in the end it will be the debate about the economics of independence that will matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Curtice reviews the polls. He finds that most indicators continue to suggest that the verdict will be No and argues that although the debate will range far and wide in the coming months, the victory will ultimately go to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}