Nick Phipps, Author at UKTPO

Residents of Hampshire and Sussex could lose 43,000 jobs in a ‘No deal’ Brexit

21 November 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit at the Observatory A ‘no deal’ Brexit could cost the jobs of up to 43,000 Sussex and Hampshire residents with around one in 40 of all jobs of residents within the 34 parliamentary constituencies at risk if there is no deal, our latest Briefing Paper – The Brexit burden: A constituency level analysis for Hampshire and Sussex – reveals. Even a soft Brexit, such as detailed in the current Withdrawal Agreement agreed by Cabinet last week, will have a significant negative impact on Hampshire and Sussex and could lead around 20,000 jobs being lost across these counties. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-21T08:55:47+00:0021 November 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments

What’s the deal?

16 November 2018 Alasdair Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and is a member of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The UK Cabinet has signed off the draft EU Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the Political Declaration (PD) about the future UK-EU trade relationship. The WA has had such a rocky reception in the Conservative Party that the future path of decision-making is a bit uncertain, but it is likely that these documents will also be agreed by the EU summit later this month. The decision-making then passes one way or another to the UK Parliament. Politics has dominated this week’s debates, but decisions need to be informed by economic assessment. Let’s consider the economic costs and benefits of the choices which Parliament will have to make. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-16T09:44:11+00:0016 November 2018|UK- EU|2 Comments

The Real Donald Trump: A Free Trader in Protectionist Clothing or Vice Versa?

7 November 2018 Rodney D. Ludema is a Professor of Economics, with a joint appointment in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Economics at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (See bio below) As the fifth meeting of the U.S. and U.K. Trade and Investment Working Group takes place this week in Washington, hope for an eventual U.S.-U.K. trade deal is on the rise, thanks to the White House’s recent notification to Congress of its intent to launch formal negotiations. This new optimism is astonishing in light of Trump’s protectionist moves of the past year and raises questions about the direction of U.S. trade policy more generally. Should Trump’s free trade overtures be taken seriously? Do they represent a change in strategy or even a change in tactics? How ambitious should we expect a U.S.-U.K. trade deal to be? To answer these questions, it is helpful to understand Trump’s motivations and the policy environment in which his policies are being developed. Such is the goal of this essay. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-07T08:57:59+00:007 November 2018|UK - Non EU|1 Comment

Preparing Competition Regulation for a “No Deal” Brexit

6 November 2018 Professor Erika Szyszczak is a Research Professor in Law and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. She was the Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords European Union Committee Inquiry: Brexit: competition and state aid On 30 October 2018, the Government revealed its plans on how competition law will continue to operate in the scenario where the UK and the EU are unable to reach an amicable separation agreement – the so-called ‘no deal’ scenario where there is no future EU-UK trade agreement in place. This Blog comments on the expected increase in the workload of the Competition and Markets Authority after Brexit and the proposed new, autonomous approach to competition policy where Regulators and courts will no longer be under an obligation to follow EU competition law. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-06T16:23:20+00:006 November 2018|UK- EU|0 Comments

Not Backing Britain: Brexit vote has reduced foreign direct investment to the UK by 19 per cent

31 October 2018 Ilona Serwicka, Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit at the UKTPO and Nicolo Tamberi, Research Assistant in Economics for the Observatory. Our latest research finds that overseas investment to the UK may be some 19 per cent lower because of the vote to leave the EU. Despite a buoyant 12 months for the world economy in 2017, inflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the UK have continued to decline since reaching a peak in 2015. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-11-01T07:56:30+00:001 November 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|5 Comments

Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into

17 October 2018 Dr Michael Gasiorek is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. UK-EU negotiations are in a mess. There appears to be a genuine impasse, where the stumbling block is the issue of no border in Ireland. The EU has indicated it is for the UK to make a better offer, while the UK is arguing that the EU needs to be more reasonable. Both are right, if they want to avoid ‘no deal’. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-10-17T16:24:55+01:0017 October 2018|UK- EU|5 Comments

Goods In – Services Out: Can the UK Walk on One Leg?

01 October 2018 Dr Ingo Borchert is Senior Lecturer in Economics, and Dr Peter Holmes is a Reader in Economics, both are fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The UK Government is currently proposing to the EU, broadly speaking, to adopt a common rulebook for goods. By contrast, not much if anything is sought in the realm of services, let alone movement of people or other areas of the Single Market. Part of the EU’s response has been that goods and services are so interlinked that one cannot have a goods only single market. Is this response just posturing as part of the negotiations process, or are there real issues with separating goods and services? […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-10-01T11:47:59+01:001 October 2018|UK- EU|1 Comment

Would Canada-plus do the trick?

26 September 2018 L. Alan Winters CB is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Assistant in Economics for the Observatory The brusque dismissal of elements of Mrs May’s Chequers plan at the informal meeting in Salzburg last week has stimulated feverish attempts to revive the case for a deep and special UK-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), under the title of a CETA-plus agreement. This effort received substantial reinforcement from the Institute for Economic Affairs’ paper of 24 September 2018. None of the discussion, however, has dealt seriously with the fact that an FTA will require the introduction of border formalities on UK-EU trade and that these will both violate the commitment to the absence of a border in Ireland and create serious congestion at those ports dealing with UK-EU flows, which will increase trading costs and cut trade with the EU. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-09-26T08:46:14+01:0026 September 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

Does the ‘Facilitated Customs Arrangement’ comply with WTO rules?

19 September 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In its Chequers White Paper, the UK government has proposed that, in order to facilitate a frictionless border, it will operate a dual customs regime known as a Facilitated Customs Arrangement (‘FCA’). By replacing rules of origin checks at the EU-UK border with internal monitoring, the FCA requires firms to establish ‘robustly’ the destination of their products to ensure that correct duties have been applied, and then, if they wish, to seek rebates if they have been overcharged. Past UKTPO blogs have addressed logistical challenges and strategic downsides of this ‘Fantastically Complicated Alternative’ (see also Does the Chequers Agreement provide any steps to Brexit heaven?) But would it be compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization? The precise details of the FCA’s operation remain unclear. Barring a dispute, it’s not possible to settle the question definitively, but the FCA does prima facie pose a risk of WTO non-compliance. We presume that the UK government has undertaken some analysis of this, and that it covers (at least) the following issues. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-09-19T16:15:50+01:0019 September 2018|UK- EU|1 Comment

Trading on ‘WTO Rules’ is NOT the best option: the treachery of growth rates

7 August 2018 Nicolo Tamberi is a Research Officer in Economics for the UK Trade Policy Observatory. In a recent post on Brexit Central , Michael Burrage examines the growth of different countries’ exports to the EU12 over 1993-2015 and asks: ‘How can trading with the EU under WTO rules be the worst possible option when the exports to the EU of 15 countries which have been doing just that over 23 years of the Single Market have grown four times as much as those of the UK, despite all the tariff and non-tariff barriers they have faced?’ The answer is ‘easily’! […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-08-07T16:21:06+01:007 August 2018|UK- EU|4 Comments

About Nick Phipps

Residents of Hampshire and Sussex could lose 43,000 jobs in a ‘No deal’ Brexit

What’s the deal?

The Real Donald Trump: A Free Trader in Protectionist Clothing or Vice Versa?

Preparing Competition Regulation for a “No Deal” Brexit

Not Backing Britain: Brexit vote has reduced foreign direct investment to the UK by 19 per cent

Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into

Goods In – Services Out: Can the UK Walk on One Leg?

Would Canada-plus do the trick?

Does the ‘Facilitated Customs Arrangement’ comply with WTO rules?

Trading on ‘WTO Rules’ is NOT the best option: the treachery of growth rates

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