ACCUSATIONS FISCAL REPORT WAS FIDDLED

ACCUSATIONS FISCAL REPORT WAS FIDDLED
Andrew Hughes Hallett is Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. From 2001 to 2006, he was Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University (Nashville) and before then at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. He is a graduate of the University of Warwick (UK) and London School of Economics, holds a Doctorate from Oxford University, and is a visiting Professor at the University of St Andrews (Scotland). He has been Visiting Professor in Economics at Princeton University (Fulbright Fellow 1992-4), Bundesbank Professor at the Free University of Berlin (2005), and has held visiting positions at the Universities of Warwick, Frankfurt, Rome, Paris X, Cardiff and at the Copenhagen Business School.

Concurrently he acts as a Research Fellow in the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London); a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scotland’s Academy of Sciences) and former chair of their Economics Committee; and as joint editor of the Scottish Journal of Political Economy.

Professor Hughes Hallett’s research interests lie in the fields of international economic policy; policy coordination; fiscal policy; the political economy of monetary integration and institutional design; and the theory of economic policy. This includes applications of game theory; fiscal-monetary interactions; exchange rate regimes; optimal policy under uncertainty; risk sharing; policies in transition or developing economies; and the issue of structural reform. In the past he has also worked on commodity markets and problems of financial market stabilisation, numerical methods in economics, and on strategic trade policy. In these areas he has published many papers in leading academic journals; plus 8 books and 16 government or agency reports, and has acted as expert witness to select committees of the Houses of Parliament on several occasions.

CALMAN HIDES FROM CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

ACCUSATIONS FISCAL REPORT WAS FIDDLED

SNP MSP Keith Brown today called for the Calman Commission to stand up to
it’s political masters and put forward real recommendations for change as
today’s newspapers claim the Commission’s report will offer no new
constitutional proposals.

In today’s Scotland on Sunday Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett - a member
of the Commission’s expert group looking at Scotland's financial
relationship with Westminster described the report as not having “much
legitimacy” and claimed that evidence had been “tampered with” by not
considering all the options.

SNP MSP Keith Brown (Ochil) said;

“On St Andrew’s Day it is disappointing to hear that the Calman Commission
has shied away from properly considering all options for Scotland’s
constitutional future.

“The Calman Commission has been a political white elephant.

“Based in, paid for and run by the Scotland Office the prospects of a
genuinely independent review of devolution and the powers of the
Parliament was always a long shot.

“From the decision to exclude independence which effectively barred the
views of a large part of the Scottish public, to Professor Hughes
Hallett’s claim that the financial report has been fiddled there has been
a clear preference for the status quo.

“In contrast to this exclusive Commission, the Scottish Government’s
National Conversation is open to all members of the public and to all
views on Scotland’s constitutional future. A future that the SNP are
committed to see determined by the people of Scotland in a referendum.

“I hope that before publication on Tuesday the members of the Calman
Commission will do their duty and open up the Commission to recommend the
additional powers or even the independence the Scottish Parliament needs
to do its best for the Scottish people.”