Undermining Economic Resilience – The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability ...

In this episode of the MMT podcast I am delighted to be talking to economist William Thomson, co-founder with Kairin Van Sweedn of the Scotonomics organisation. Scotonomics aims are described as, “Exploring how our economic system really works—and how it could work better.” William has - through his energy and commitment - become a leading character in Scotland’s heterodox economics community - spreading the word about how we can use our knowledge about the economy to make people’s lives better. As well as organised economics conferences in Scotland, William has also been busy writing and co-writing discussion papers and articles on Scotland’s economy - including the one we chat about today called “Undermining Economic Resilience – The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in an Independent Scotland.” Co-written with Dr Dirk Ehnts. Dirk is a German heterodox economist and an accredited parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament in Brussels for Fabio de Masi (MEP). As well as chatting about the paper William will also be telling me about the upcoming festival of economics called ‘Scotland’s Festival of Economics’ - a nice literal title for the conference. The conference takes place from March 19th to 21st 2026. I’ll be attending the conference myself for the Thursday sessions. Hi, I’m Jim Byrne and this is for people who believe we can build a fairer, greener world by understanding how the monetary system works. Subscribe for free to get my weekly post. MMT101 Podcast Links • Scotonomics (https://scotonomics.org/) • Scotland’s Festival of Economics (https://scotonomics.org/event/scotlands-festival-of-economics/) • Discussion paper: Undermining Economic Resilience - The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in an Independent Scotland (2026) (https://scotonomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Discussion-Paper.-Undermining-Economic-Resilience-The-Economic-Impact-of-Adopting-the-European-Unions-Stability-and-Growth-Pact-in-an-Independent-Scotland.pdf) • Modern Money Theory: A Simple Guide to the Monetary System (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Money-Theory-Professional-Organizations/dp/3031535367) - Dirk Ehnts (2024) (https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CdbC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7ea0e440-9b83-460a-956d-44a45051371a_1462x1479.jpeg) Jim Byrne MMT101 Subscribe now (https://mmt101.substack.com/subscribe?) Links to some of my most popular newsletters • Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in 70 Bullet Points (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-in-67) • My MMT Top Ten: Modern Monetary Theory’s Best Ideas Explained (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/my-mmt-top-ten-modern-monetary-theorys) • Killing the Myth of Government Borrowing Stone Dead: Gilts, T-Bills, Interest Rates and the Truth About Money Printing (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/killing-the-myth-of-government-borrowing) • An Explanation Of Why Taxes Don’t Fund Spending—And Why Elon Musk Is Wrong About The US Government Deficit (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/an-explanation-of-why-taxes-dont) • Important Figures in the Development of MMT: Abba P. Lerner ‘Functional Finance’ (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/important-figures-in-the-development) - Jim Byrne Become a paid subscribers for access to additional content: • A Permanent Home for MMT101 Paid Subscriber Resources (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/a-permanent-home-for-mmt101-paid) – Factsheets, book recommendations, academic papers, MMT podcasts and more. • MMT Factsheet 1: Currency Issuers vs. Currency Users (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/new-mmt-factsheets-are-here-exclusive) • MMT Factsheet 2: The Origins of Money (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-factsheet) • MMT Factsheet 3: If Taxes Are Not For Spending What Are They For? (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/mmt-factsheet-3-if-taxes-are-not) • MMT Factsheet 4: What Does Full Employment Mean? (https://mmt101.substack.com/p/mmt-factsheet-4-what-does-full-employment)