Talk:Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland

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Destubification[edit]

Among the many things missing from this article are:

Creation
1. Who created GERS? Right now it reads as if the Scottish govt did, but GERS predates any political devolution by some years. As the unhelpful Ian Lang, Baron Lang of Monkton doesn't tell us, Lang created it in 1991 as sources as varied as David Torrance and Jim Mather will confirm.
2. Why did they create it? The Cuthberts offer some suggestions as to Lang's rationale [1] in their article "GERS: Where Now?". Presumably Torrance's Scottish Secretaries has something to say as well, although I have no recollection of what that might be.
Content
1. Can we tell the reader what the content is? (The answer to this question changed just last month when a variety of new measures, most of whose purpose in the context of GERS is as hard to decipher as the political rationale for their inclusion is easy.)
2. Can we explain why it is what it is?
3. Can we explain how it is calculated? (This provides a useful link to the idea of pure public goods, so why not?)
4. How, if at all, does GERS today differ from GERS in 1991? Presumably this would be the story of Neil Aslen and the Cuthberts, among others. Mather might make an appearance. It would be useful to have more than one overview of GERS' history to hand, so as to avoid overreliance on a single source, i.e. the Cuthberts' article mentioned earlier.
5. Is "why does it differ?" a valid topic for inclusion?
Significance
1. Somebody thought it was worth lifting a contextless quote from a GERS report to add here. Safe to assume it has significance.
2. Perennial bun fights.
3. Err
Sources
1. Cuthberts article above.
2. Erickson, 'A Question of Growth' in Scottish Affairs 43 (here)
3. Mair & McAteer, 'Scotching the Myth' in Scottish Affairs 19 (here)

Think of this as a to-do list, unless of course you're minded to fix it using your own criteria. In that case, good luck! Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]