A few thoughts on how Brexit is likely to affect the UK economy in 2021 - with the caveat that much remains uncertain 1/

Most important change on January 1st will be higher trade costs due to creation of UK-EU customs border plus restrictions on what services trade is allowed

Costs from regulatory divergence likely to be at least as important as border costs in the long run, but not immediately 2/
Expect disruption & delays at the border for the first few months

However, I do not anticipate shortages of essential goods, as imports can be expedited if needed, e.g. air freight, priority customs processing 3/
Delays will become shorter and more predictable as firms learn what paperwork is needed and customs capacity improves. Important for just-in-time supply chains where predictability is more important than speed 4/
Contrary to government claims, many costs will be permanent:
- Red tape, e.g. need for customs workers wastes resources & lowers productivity
wasting resources
- Tariffs (if no deal)
- Rules of origin (if deal)
- Lost market access for services

https://t.co/07wNehNn7z 5/
Border costs will raise import prices & make it harder for UK firms to export to EU. UK-EU trade will grow less quickly

Consumer price rises likely to be moderate (low single digits?) but will gradually erode living standards similar to post-referendum https://t.co/l7Zyegk7MZ 6/
Tariffs are low or zero in most sectors, but some industries would be hit hard by no deal, e.g. cars, clothing, meat & dairy. Loses concentrated on small groups, can trigger political backlash & have high salience

https://t.co/d2r6M1GlvB 7/
Aggregate effects of Brexit will be swamped by Covid in 2021, as vaccine roll-out and end of social distancing lead to strong recovery. But Brexit will still exert a drag on economic growth that will become more apparent as
time passes. 8/
For casual observers, border disruption & possible impact of tariffs on car industry & agriculture likely to be most visible immediate economic impacts 9/
Monetary policy: Brexit mostly irrelevant due to overwhelming importance of Covid in determining path of policy.

And, as the Bank of England has noted, monetary policy cannot offset the impact of a permanent negative supply shock 10/
Fiscal policy: subsidies can be targeted to hardest hit. I favour compensating losers from trade policy, but remember that compensation merely redistributes the
costs to tax payers rather than solving underlying problem of higher trade costs 11/

https://t.co/2ZULlcIotu
Further reading

Excellent @UKandEU report on implications of new deal. @anandMenon1 @jdportes @jillongovt: https://t.co/OV0XXk5ypk

Interesting @JohnSpringford @tomashirstecon piece on interactions between Brexit & Covid:
https://t.co/pgasjQHwzw

More from Brexit

A quote from this excellent piece, neatly summarising a core impact of Brexit.

The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.


Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.

It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.

In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.

But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
#Brexitadventcalendar

31 liars & hypocrites who facilitated brexit

Some are mad, some are bad

All are millionaires, some are billionaires

They’ll profit from UK companies failing, keep their money abroad to avoid UK tax and travel freely with their EU passports

#RejoinEU


https://t.co/mZRr9u1RPb


https://t.co/BY6hKloR9d


https://t.co/NdC0ltLeSM


https://t.co/BLnRLotso7

You May Also Like