To put some issues to bed here is the economic report of S&P.
Economic Structure And Growth Prospects: A Rich, Diversified Country
The Scottish economy is rich and relatively diversified, with 2014 per capita GDP estimated to be US$47,369 (based onthe Scottish government's estimates, which include Scotland's geographic share of North Sea output, abbreviated asScotland (Geographical) in the table above). Scottish wealth levels are comparable to that of the U.K. ('AAA'), Germany('AAA'), Ireland ('BBB+'), and New Zealand ('AA-'). Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDPonly by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP percapita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supportscreditworthiness.
We view Scotland's trend growth as closely matching that of the U.K. While North Sea output (again on ageographical, rather than population-derived basis) accounts for 16% of Scottish GDP (calculated using data from theScottish government's experimental national accounts project), this does not, under our methodology, lead us toconclude that the economy is excessively concentrated. We typically only adjust for excess economic concentrationshould a single sector exceed one-fifth of a country's GDP.
Nevertheless, Scotland's economic performance would be subject to several potential adjustment risks during its earlyyears as an independent state. First, at 8% of GDP, and employing 7% of the workforce, Scotland's financial sector islarge and closely integrated into the U.K. Re-domiciling of these international banks to the remaining U.K. could exerta drag on the size of Scottish GDP, though less so on gross national product, which excludes income fromforeign-owned companies. Second, Scotland also has a natural dependency on merchandise and business servicestrade with the rest of the U.K., the destination for an estimated 49% of Scottish exports; independence may lead to apartial reversal of that integration, with economic consequences. Third, the public sector is sizable, accounting fornearly one-quarter of the total workforce. This is considerably higher than the U.K. average. In our opinion, shiftingpost-independence to a lower public sector employment rate could weigh on Scotland's initial growth performance.Fourth, at 16% of GDP the oil sector is also large. Indeed, a secular decline in oil production in the North Sea has beena significant factor in the U.K.'s below-par growth and productivity performance since 2008 and would beproportionally a larger drag on Scotland's future GDP performance unless the decline in volume energy output couldbe reversed. However, redressing the long-term decline in oil production might also carry fiscal implications if it