Ahead of tonight's BBC referendum debate, Research Director and author of the ASI’s new report “Quids In: How sterlingization and free banking could help Scotland flourish”, Sam Bowman, writes for The Yorkshire Post:

SCOTS HAVE rightly focused on the question of currency as they prepare to decide whether to vote for or against independence next month. In the last television debate between Alex Salmond and Alastair Darling, the SNP leader struggled to explain how Scotland would cope without a formal currency union with the rest of the UK. Tonight, he will need to do better.

In a new paper for the Adam Smith Institute, I offer a solution to Salmond’s problem. I argue that an independent Scotland should continue using the pound sterling without a currency union. Combined with a system of financial reform based on Scotland’s most successful period in economic history, this system of ‘adaptive sterlingisation’ could give Scotland a highly stable banking system and economy in the long run.

The report, “Quids In: How sterlingization and free banking could help Scotland flourish”, can be read and downloaded for free here.