Fiscal autonomy for Scotland? A rejoinder

Ashcroft, Brian and Christie, Alex and Swales, John K. (2006) Fiscal autonomy for Scotland? A rejoinder. Quarterly Economic Commentary, 31 (2). pp. 55-56. ISSN 0306-7866

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Abstract

In their paper „A restatement of the case for fiscal autonomy‟ Hallwood and MacDonald (2006b) claim that Barnett is a formula for a rake‟s progress and that fiscal autonomy, as outlined in their previous paper „The economic case for Scottish fiscal autonomy: with or without independence‟ (Hallwood and MacDonald, 2006a), offers a superior financial settlement for Scotland. We here restate our continued disagreements with their argument. We start with corrections of their interpretation of our paper „Flaws and myths in the case for Scottish fiscal autonomy‟ (Ashcroft, Christie and Swales, 2006) before highlighting where we believe their latest paper fails to provide answers to important questions we posed.