The UK’s post-Brexit Trade Relationship with the European Union: Through a glass, darkly
10 December 2018
L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory
The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration are being presented as a means to end the uncertainty about the UK’s future relationship with Europe. But in an explainer for the ESRC’s UK in a Changing Europe, Professor L Alan Winters argues that this is not the case. Uncertainty will continue regardless of what happens to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Briefly, he argues that, if the Withdrawal Agreement is approved by Parliament and the EU:
- The backstop it mandates requires a customs union between the UK and the EU and that most EU regulations for goods will apply in Northern Ireland. However, there is no regulatory alignment between the rest of the UK and the EU and so, if the backstop came into operation, there would be border formalities both in the Irish Sea and as UK goods entered the EU via any other route.
- Negotiating a trade agreement with the EU will take a lot longer than the 21 months allowed for it in the Withdrawal Agreement, not least because every EU member state […]
The vulnerability of different parliamentary constituencies to Brexit economic shocks
10 December 2018
L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the economics of Brexit at the Observatory.
Today we are publishing a study of the economic impact of ‘no deal’ and ‘soft’ Brexit scenarios on the 632 Parliamentary constituencies in Great Britain. It shows that calculating the effect of Brexit on the residents in an area gives a very different perspective from the more common calculation based on the jobs in that area.
For example, a ‘no deal’ Brexit would imply a shock equivalent to losing some 42,400 jobs in the parliamentary constituency of Cities of London and Westminster. However, 41,250 of these jobs are held by people who live elsewhere. At the other extreme, Streatham may suffer a loss equivalent to 650 of its jobs, but around 2,250 of Streatham’s residents would lose their employment. […]
What should we make of the Government’s Brexit estimates?
30 November 2018
L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Dr Michael Gasiorek, a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Peter Holmes, Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex both fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
- We welcome the Government’s estimates of the economic consequences of alternative Brexits. They are way overdue.
- The modelling was very competently done.
- But the assumptions made tended to favour the Government’s preferred position over other alternatives.
On Tuesday, the UK Government released a set of cross-Departmental estimates of the possible economic costs of different Brexit options. They were based on the Government’s own modelling, which uses a technique known as a Computable General Equilibrium modelling and is based on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) consortium’s world model and dataset. The aim is to model (very approximately) the important linkages in an economy over a medium to long-term horizon and to assess the possible impact of changes in trade policy on the economy. (Short-term modelling, over a five year period, was simultaneously released by the Bank of England, but we do not discuss it here). The modelling approach is relatively standard, has been applied […]
Environmental non-regression in the Withdrawal Agreement: forcing the EU’s hand on the Level Playing Field
21 November 2018
Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.
Even if the draft Withdrawal Agreement is ultimately rejected, it provides more clarity on what the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) want in future relationship negotiations. Notably, it has prompted the EU to develop its call for a ‘level playing field’ in the areas of environmental and labour standards, State Aid and competition policy into a set of binding commitments now agreed by the UK Government. This blog examines the requirements for environmental standards and regulation. The EU has already indicated that it will seek ‘Level Playing Field’ commitments in any agreement, including a ‘Canada-style’ deal. These environmental commitments will likely comprise a minimum standard that the EU will require in any negotiated future relationship. […]
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.
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.
[…]
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. […]
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. […]
Briefing Paper 26 – THE BREXIT BURDEN: A CONSTITUENCY LEVEL ANALYSIS FOR HAMPSHIRE AND SUSSEX
This study focuses on the economic shocks that a ‘no deal’ Brexit would entail across the constituencies of Hampshire and Sussex. We take estimates of the effects of a ‘no deal’ Brexit on output and employment in different sectors of the UK economy and using the composition of employment in each constituency, estimate how each constituency will be affected. The novel feature of our analysis is that we allow for commuting and so convert the Brexit shock from referring to workers in a constituency to referring to residents in the constituency. With the South East region the most heavily engaged in cross-border trade, after allowing for the fact that people often live and work in different places, we estimate that the shock to residents of Hampshire and Sussex could be equivalent to the loss of about 43,000 jobs. Given that Brexit decisions will ultimately be taken on the floor of the House of Commons, this Briefing Paper provides a base from which Hampshire and Sussex MPs can start to assess the impact of Brexit on their constituents.
Read Briefing Paper 26 – THE BREXIT BURDEN: A CONSTITUENCY LEVEL ANALYSIS FOR HAMPSHIRE AND SUSSEX
See also: Online Appendix and subsequent work repeating the exercise for the full list of 632 […]
Briefing Paper 25 – MOST FAVOURED NATION CLAUSES IN EU TRADE AGREEMENTS: ONE MORE HURDLE FOR UK NEGOTIATORS
This Briefing Paper provides a comprehensive overview of the EU’s Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clauses on services and investment. It discusses their scope and the exceptions they contain, and then considers how these clauses are likely to limit the extent of concessions that the EU and its existing partners are prepared to grant the UK.
