Hamish McRae: This panic over Scotland is misplaced

Business is bad at coping with political risk. One example of a sharp reaction to a potential political shock is, of course, what may happen in Scotland this week. But there are many others.

Look at the difficulty business has had with thinking through the consequences for European companies of Russia’s aggressive stance on Ukraine.

Or the way in which perceptions of the debt of eurozone fringe countries have swung from confidence, to terror of default and back to confidence again.

In the case of the Scottish referendum, it is as though a fire alarm has suddenly gone off. We have had the extraordinary transformation from a business and financial community on both sides of the border that was almost totally silent on this issue, to one that is racing about shouting how grave the consequences of independence might be.

The trigger was the narrowing of the polls, but that narrowing had been evident for several months. In any case, the final few days of a referendum are always critical.

We will see what we will see. But just as the initial indifference was misguided, so surely is the present panic. Whatever happens on Thursday, the economic infrastructure of both countries will be the same on Friday.

The shops will be the same, the businesses the same, the banks the same, the schools and hospitals the same, the money at least for the time being the same. Financial markets can move suddenly but big political events shape economies in the medium and long term, not the short.

From the perspective of London (and I should say that I straddle the two cultures, being part-Scottish and part-English and living mostly in London but also in Galloway), it is hard to see the outcome having more than a marginal effect.

Whatever way the vote goes, the whole issue could be marginally negative or marginally positive.

Negative if the Scottish economy were to tank, but I don’t think it would, and positive if the uncertainties that are likely to persist whatever the outcome nudges business south.

In the event of independence, a home market becomes an export market, but you have to remember that Scotland is only 8% of UK GDP. That is three years’ good growth — or to put it another way, the rest of the UK can create the equivalent of another Scottish economy every three years.

From the perspective of Scotland, there would inevitably be much more disruption in the event of a “Yes” but there will be some disruption anyway.

The reason for that — which also explains the silence of most businesses until a few days ago — has been the apparent hostility of the “Yes” camp towards business in general. Any company that voiced concerns was jumped on, sometimes unpleasantly.