Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T19:57:40.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Money and Banking in Scotland and Norway

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

John Bryden
Affiliation:
Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute in Oslo
Keith Hart
Affiliation:
University of Pretoria
John Bryden
Affiliation:
Professor, University of Aberdeen and Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute
Lesley Riddoch
Affiliation:
Director, Nordic Horizons
Ottar Brox
Affiliation:
Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of Urban and Regional Research
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we look at the history of money and banking in Scotland and Norway, and make some comparisons between the monetary experience of the two countries in the period up to the recent financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, with the main focus being on Scotland. We then consider the options facing small open economies like these two countries at a moment of dramatic change in the global organisation of money. This in turn allows us to open up important questions about the future that as yet are hardly being considered in the debates over Scotland's possible independence.

The referendum debates have identified three main monetary alternatives in the event of Scottish independence: to remain in the sterling area; to join the European Monetary Union (EMU); and to issue an independent currency, with or without a peg to sterling or the euro. There has been no discussion so far of a dual or multiple system where the national currency coexists with others as legal tender – as in Zimbabwe today or indeed Scotland before the late seventeenth century, Scandinavia between 1873 and 1914, and the Hanseatic city states between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Indeed, we will argue that national monopoly currencies were an invention of the mid-nineteenth century and are now in disarray, as are fixed-exchange rate currency unions. Throughout history the circulation of several independent currencies within a territory has been normal and this situation is being restored now. It would be a shame if the debate concerning Scotland's money system after possible independence were limited to models that are already anachronistic.

Both the reports cited above agree that the optimal solution is to stick with sterling in a monetary union after independence. The UK Government report, however, emphasises that effective ‘supervision’ will limit Scotland's fiscal policy independence. Many other observers have made the same point, while some have ruled out such a solution even before negotiations.5 However, a recent paper by Angus Armstrong and Monique Ebell on ‘Monetary Unions and Fiscal Constraints’, argues that ‘any negotiation to form a monetary union between two sovereign states substantially different in size, and each acting in their own self-interest, is likely to result in a currency arrangement that resembles “dollarization” in practice’, and that fiscal control by the larger partner is neither necessary nor feasible.

Type
Chapter
Information
Northern Neighbours
Scotland and Norway since 1800
, pp. 164 - 187
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×