1. Scotland could be a rich country

Scotland is the 14th wealthiest country in the world if you go by GDP per head.

That’s assuming an independent Scotland would get the lion’s share of the oil and gas fields – which belong to the UK now but lie in Scottish waters.

Hydrocarbons mean Scotland’s GDP per capita was just under $40,000 in 2012, higher than France and the United Kingdom as a whole.

Even without oil, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s says Scotland would still “qualify for our highest economic assessment”.

2. But there are real risks

Dire warnings of the economic risks of independence tend to get dismissed as “Project Fear” scare stories if they emanate from Westminster.

So let’s stick to the potential risks that independent think tanks and economists have highlighted: the costs of setting up the institutions of a new country; dwindling supplies of oil and gas; volatile oil prices; higher borrowing costs; an ageing population; businesses and capital fleeing to England.

While it’s impossible to put an exact price on any of these things, it’s wrong to dismiss them as fantasy.

3. The Scottish economy has weakened recently

The latest analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that Scotland went from having a slightly smaller budget deficit than the UK to a somewhat larger deficit in 2012/13.

Scotland’s fiscal position is likely to worsen relative to the UK until 2018/19 thanks to declining oil revenues, according to the think tank.

In the long term, as oil stocks dwindle, Scotland may have to cut spending or raise taxes.

4. The EU question has not been resolved

Experts disagree on what happens to Scotland’s EU membership if it becomes a new country.

Several leading Eurocrats have said Scotland will find itself outside the bloc and will have to reapply for membership. That would require a unanimous vote from all the member states.

Countries that have their own separatist movements to worry about – like Italy, Belgium and Spain – could block its efforts to join. The UK could even veto it, if it was feeling spiteful.

Others say there is no legal mechanism for stripping Scots of their EU membership, so the whole thing could end up in the European court of justice.

As an EU member state has never split in two before, no-one knows what will really happen.

5. The currency question has not been resolved

Alex Salmond’s first choice is for a currency union with the rest of the UK, so Scotland can use the pound with the Bank of England setting monetary policy and acting as a lender of last resort.

But the leaders of all main parties at Westminster and the governor of the Bank of England have said that will not happen.

Mr Salmond is still refusing to say what his plan B would be, although his repeated statements along the lines of “it’s our pound” suggests that he would favour using sterling unofficially.

Many economists say that would be disastrous, but some disagree.

6. Scotland has not been robbed by Westminster

It’s a “fact” that people have thrown at FactCheck time and again: Scotland has paid in more to the Treasury through revenue from oil and gas over the years than it has taken out in public spending.

This doesn’t appear to be true, though.

Professor Brian Ashcroft from Strathclyde University says higher public spending slightly outweighed the higher taxes coming from Scotland from 1980 to 2012.

This doesn’t tell us the whole story – the same figures could be used to argue that Scotland has often historically been in a stronger fiscal position than the UK, running lower deficits.

Nationalists will also look at those massive tax revenues in the early 1980s and regret that the windfall was not invested in a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund.

But it does nail the myth that Scots have been robbed blind by the Treasury.

7. Scotland is firmly in control of its NHS

The NHS is a fully devolved matter, so it’s up to the Scottish government to set the health service budget and decide on how healthcare is delivered.

There is no reason why moves towards greater privatisation by a Conservative government in Westminster would lead to the same thing happening in Scotland.

We also found in a recent FactCheck that the Scottish government has been under-spending in recent years – putting less than the maximum available into health services.

Since then the Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a note that largely agrees with our findings, saying: historically, at least, Scottish governments in Holyrood have placed less priority on funding the NHS in Scotland (and more on funding other services) than governments in Westminster have for England.

8. But Westminster still holds the purse strings

Contrary to statements made by Alistair Darling, it remains the case that the overall money made available to the Scottish government to spend on services – the “block grant” – is decided in Westminster.

The UK government can and has cut the block grants it doles out to the devolved regions. In an age of austerity, Scotland is vulnerable to more spending cuts imposed from London.

9. Scotland probably won’t be nuclear-free

The SNP is against nuclear weapons and wants the UK’s Trident deterrent out of Scotland.

But the party has also reversed its earlier policy on Nato, and now says it wants to join the nuclear-armed military alliance.

Some commentators say Nato would not look favourably on a membership application from a country that has weakened the nuclear strategy by forcing the UK to move its missiles from the Clyde.

Others say Nato would not want to have a Scotland-shaped hole in its defences. The question is yet another one that remains unsettled, but the Scottish government has said that it would in fact operate a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy if its Nato allies want to dock warships in Scottish ports.

That means there could be nuclear weapons in Scottish waters in the future, and the government would turn a blind eye to their presence.

10. It’s not necessarily forever

This has become a big catchphrase for the no camp in recent weeks: if we vote yes, it’s forever. There’s no turning back

That’s not technically true, according to every expert we managed to speak to.

Professor Vernon Bogdanor from King’s College London said: “The government of an independent Scotland could at any time seek to re-join the United Kingdom.

“But reversal of independence and re-union with the rest of Britain would be a difficult and cumbrous process.”