The economic impact of the Brexit deal: our

Key points to remember:

1. Leaving Single Market/Customs Union means major new trade barriers - customs and border checks, regulatory barriers, end of rules allowing services to be sold across borders.
2. A deal doesn't change that. It means no tariffs and quotas and *some* provisions that will stop trade breaking down. But the main impacts -on our and the government's own analysis, about two-thirds - happen either way
3. That also means that some disruption is inevitable. You can't introduce new systems/processes overnight. The delay in doing a deal plus covid means some things will go wrong
4. But short term disruption, even if it gets headlines, does *not* mean Brexit is a failure. And when that disruption is resolved and new systems are working, we should*not* conclude it's a success.
5. It is the medium)long term impact that matters. Our analysis, and that if government economists, and other independent economists, is that this Brexit deal will reduce growth/productivity/wages/incomes, perhaps by 4-6%, over 10-15 years - so knocking maybe 0.5% a year off
6. Lots of uncertainty here but there really is little/no doubt Brexit will make us (somewhat/ poorer than we would otherwise be. Erecting major new trade barriers -which is what Brexit does - does that.
7. But the impacts will mount over time, the UK economy will continue to grow nevertheless, and other things - AI, net zero - will have large and maybe larger impacts at the same time. Economically, Brexit will be a slow slow puncture, not a blow out.
8. The UK economy will adapt - economies do. And future policy choices will matter a lot. Plenty of work to do (for economists and others!) ENDS

More from Economy

1/ To add a little texture to @NickHanauer's thread, it's important to recognize that there's a good reason why orthodox economists (& economic cosplayers) so vehemently oppose a $15 min wage:

The min wage is a wedge that threatens to undermine all of orthodox economic theory.


2/ Orthodox economics is grounded in two fundamental models: a systems model that describes the market as a closed equilibrium system, and a behavioral model that describes humans as rational, self-interested utility-maximizers. The modern min wage debate undermines both models.

3/ The assertion that a min wage kills jobs is so central to orthodox economics that it is often used as the textbook example of the Supply/Demand curve. Raise the cost of labor and businesses will buy less of it. It's literally Econ 101!


4/ Econ 101 insists that markets automatically set an efficient "equilibrium price" for labor & everything else. Mess with this price and bad things happen. Yet decades of empirical research has persuaded a majority of economists that this just isn't

5/ How can this be? Well, either the market is not a closed equilibrium system in which if you raise the price of labor employers automatically purchase less of it... OR the market is not automatically setting an efficient and fair equilibrium wage. Or maybe both. #FAIL

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