University of Glasgow Professor, Ronald Macdonald, has launched a website that allows users to see the predicted impact of independence on their personal finances.
UofG Economics Professor Ronald Macdonald has launched a website called ourmoney.scot, which enables users to take a test in order to find out how an independent Scotland would affect them financially.
The feature asks users to select, from a number of options, their primary source of income, their housing situation, their annual household income, and whether or not they expect they would be financially better off in an independent Scotland. The website then gives some personalised statistics showing how financially better or worse off they could be in an independent Scotland.
The website also offers some of Professor Macdonald’s commentary on the SNP’s proposed economic policy that could be put into practice in an independent Scotland. The SNP recently proposed that an independent Scotland would be able to continue to use the British Pound with the intention of transitioning to new Scottish currency after a period of time.
The website then states on this policy: “During this period [being independent but using the British Pound]: The Bank of England would continue to set our interest rates, Scotland would not have the ability to print more British pounds, and interventions like Quantitative Easing, which helped us during the pandemic, would be impossible.”
It continues: “Were Scotland to diverge from the rest of the UK economically, or vice versa, Scotland would not be able to alter its monetary policy to reflect that change, and without any representation on the Bank of England, it would have no means of influencing it either.”
Professor Macdonald’s website states:”We agree with pro-independence economists who say introducing a new currency is the only way that Scotland can have true control over economic policy.” It goes on to say, however, that: “It is a power, however, that does not come without a cost. In fact, we estimate that it would cost the average Scottish household £7,300 a year.”
Ronald MacDonald is currently Professor of Macroeconomics and International Finance at the University. He is the former Adam Smith Professor of Political Economy, and was awarded an OBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to Economic Policy.
The website can be accessed here.
