No deal

Three-way voting paradoxes

16 January 2019 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory This note supplements an article on ‘Organising a three-way referendum’ published on The Economist website (16th January 2019). It offers a worked example to show how the three main approaches to three-way ballots operate and some of the challenges they throw up. It reinforces Ken Arrow’s result that there is no ideal way of combining individual preferences to select one of three options. […]

By Nick Phipps|2019-01-14T09:33:02+00:0014 January 2019|UK- EU|2 Comments

Organising the ‘Second’ Referendum

17 December 2018 L. Alan Winters CB, Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. The UKTPO exists to provide independent and objective advice on the economics and law of Brexit and trade policy. The question of whether to hold a ‘second’ referendum is essentially a political one. However, how to organise such a referendum is a technical question on which economists have something to offer. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-12-17T12:11:19+00:0017 December 2018|UK- EU|23 Comments

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. […]

By Nick Phipps|2018-12-10T14:57:15+00:0010 December 2018|UK- EU|6 Comments

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

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

Will Brexit Raise the Cost of Living?

2 November 2017 Ilona Serwicka is Research Fellow in the Economics of Brexit at the UKTPO. As the United Kingdom is preparing to leave the European Union, Government policy is to seek a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. But Brexit talks have not moved onto the trade issues yet and even if the future trade relationship is taken up in December, this gives little time and offers no guarantee that an agreement will be reached and ratified before 29 March 2019, the Brexit date. The Government has recently recognised the possibility that talks might break down and started to outline a ‘no deal’ vision of the UK-EU trade. Our analysis reveals that unemployed households, those with children, and pensioners will all fare off worse than average in the case of a ‘no deal’. A new paper, Will Brexit Raise the Cost of Living? by Stephen Clarke, Ilona Serwicka and L. Alan Winters, and published by the National Institute Economic Review, looks at the impact that imposing Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs on UK imports from the EU would have on the price of goods sold in the UK and the average cost of living. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-11-02T16:53:35+00:002 November 2017|UK- EU|3 Comments

No deal’ Brexit tariffs could mean millions of households facing price rises of over £500 a year

17 October 2017 Lower-income households would be disproportionately affected should the UK revert to WTO tariffs Exiting the EU without a trade deal and reverting to WTO ‘most-favoured nation’ (MFN) tariffs with the EU would lead to significant price rises across a range of goods, with low-income households facing the biggest cost pressures. This is according to a new joint-report published by the Resolution Foundation and the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-10-17T08:11:04+01:0017 October 2017|UK- EU|2 Comments

Groundhog day: Is the Government White Paper on trade and Customs Bill a step forward?

11 October 2017 Dr Michael Gasiorek is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex and Director and Managing Director of InterAnalysis Reading the Government’s White Paper on trade, and the Customs Bill on future customs arrangements, together with Monday’s statement from the Prime Minister seemed like a Groundhog day moment. In other words, this is somewhere we have been before – repeatedly. […]

By Nick Phipps|2017-10-11T10:33:01+01:0011 October 2017|UK- EU|3 Comments

Partners