Here's an archive of the article.

With it's concluding paragraph:

Considering Scotland has all the necessary machinery in place to become an independent state, we see no obvious reasons why Scotland would not succeed economically if it were to do so, especially if achieved within the bounds of the law. Although our findings might be controversial to some, we hope to show that Scottish independence, while not inevitable, is far more nuanced a matter than many have claimed. There exist several options worth pursuing for the parties to this debate.

 

Here's what it says now:

Update 2 April: We have been asked by the authors to take this article down temporarily. We will be making it available again as soon as we are able to and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

~ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/scottish-independence-cost/

by bottish

12 comments

  1. A few days ago somehow on here was asking about the London School of Economics’s bias, and something deep down in the recesses of my memory lit up a vague dim light bulb that *wasn’t it the LSE that deleted that post on Scottish Independence a while ago?* And here we are.

  2. This is one of the things which bothers me most about the economic arguments against independence.

    They are all based on: The country generates £X income, but it spends £X+Y, therefore we’d be economically fucked if we were independent.

    But that’s all calculated based in the *current* situation where the Scottish government cannot borrow in its own right, can only tinker around the edges of the country’s tax regime, has no input over any reserved matters, and runs the risk of being hampered/interfered with on devolved ones.

    There are countless small European nations who have come from difficult economic situations to be generally quite prosperous. It can be done.

    Yes, there would be inevitable short term disruptions to how things are done and there ought to be recognition of that and plans in place to deal with the most pressing of them.

    Ignoring the short term problems, like ignoring the long term benefits, serves nobody.

  4. It’s pretty obvious however that the current situation with Westminster is untenable, even Labour is kowtowing to Dump and Felonia instead of being combative.

  5. Could thrive and will is a very poor position, would you like to ask all those in Aberdeen regarding this, companies going bust, house prices etc.

  6. The whole problem with using Gers as a reference post is that it assumes the same level of spending post indy. Like we wouldn’t immediately have to pay for capital projects like HS2 or trident if we didn’t want to.

  7. I had high hopes for independence for years but a fast route to inner peace has been accepting its never going to happen

    Supreme Court ended that hope and the UK gov will never allow it

  8. Scotland generates 10% more tax revenues per capita than NZ, a comparable, prosperous independent country. We absolutely don’t need money from England, rather England needs our resources.

  10. Four years ago now seems a bit of a distant time, what with the whole war in Ukraine, billionaires literally buying election results, endless social media nonsense, and all the other chaotic malarkey.

  11. All the oil money bean-counting and whatnot during the referendum never really thrilled me. The average joe is affected a lot more by the structure of society and which political decisions are made than however many billions are going through the system.

    That said, even if total structural reform was somehow on the table, people have probably had enough short-term costs and disruption for a lifetime.

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