Brexit

Blog

LSE Impact:

Did Brexit make us better at communicating economics?

The referendum on the UK's membership of the EU was a watershed moment for research communication. Despite a near total academic consensus on the negative economic consequences of a vote to Leave, this message did not de...Read more...

Romesh Vaitilingam

8 July 2026

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Post-Brexit trade policy hit supply chains and workers

After Brexit, firms in the UK found their supply chains disrupted. Holger Breinlich, Elsa Leromain and Martina Magli show that subsequent declines in trade led to less employment and lower pay for workers - with firms im...Read more...

Holger Breinlich, Elsa Leromain and Martina Magli

26 June 2026

CentrePiece article

Brexit has been an economic failure: here?s the evidence

Putting up trade barriers has made the UK poorer...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

19 June 2026

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Brexit shows how firms react when restrictions are placed on the way they reach customers

Brexit changed how British firms could sell services in the European Union. By studying how companies reacted, Holger Breinlich and Martina Magli show that many implemented workarounds, such as setting up affiliates abro...Read more...

Holger Breinlich and Martina Magli

17 June 2026

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Brexit has been an economic failure

Putting up trade barriers, higher import prices and uncertainty have made the UK poorer. Thomas Sampson provides the evidence showing how Brexit has negatively affected the UK's economy....Read more...

Thomas Sampson

16 June 2026

CentrePiece article

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Brexit means that UK exporters of services now face more red tape and fewer opportunities....Read more...

Danyal Arnold, Shania Bhalotia and Swati Dhingra

21 October 2025

Blog

UK in a Changing Europe:

Deglobalisation in disguise?

Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Danyal Arnold explain their study on the effect of Brexit on the UK's ability to export services abroad. They argue that exporters now face higher trade costs, more red tape and fewer o...Read more...

Danyal Arnold, Shania Bhalotia and Swati Dhingra

23 July 2025

CEP discussion paper

Deglobalisation in disguise? Brexit barriers and trade in services

Deglobalisation policies promote the vision that pulling back from economic integration can help correct international imbalances and reposition national economies for renewed prosperity. A core vision of Brexit was to t...Read more...

Danyal Arnold, Shania Bhalotia and Swati Dhingra

30 June 2025

CentrePiece article

How Brexit affected the trade of UK firms

The UK left the EU?s single market and customs union at the start of 2021, entering into the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thom...Read more...

Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson

20 February 2025

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

How Brexit affected the trade of UK firms

The UK left the EU's single market and customs union at the start of 2021, entering unto the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thom...Read more...

Rebecca Freeman, Marco Garofalo, Enrico Longoni, Kalina Manova, Rebecca Mari, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson

18 December 2024

CEP election analysis

Brexit and UK trade

This briefing summarises the evidence about how leaving the European Union (EU) has affected UK trade. Overall, Brexit has had a negative effect on UK trade. But, so far, this effect has been smaller than economists expe...Read more...

Dennis Novy, Thomas Sampson and Catherine Thomas

17 June 2024

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Global Britain has failed - what next?

The vision of post-Brexit Britain was one of international trade deals that would propel the country into a new era of prosperity. That vision of "Global Britain" is now dead. Thomas Sampson argues that the only viable a...Read more...

Thomas Sampson

16 February 2024

CEP Insights

Insights: condensed

The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...

6 February 2024

CEP Brexit analysis

Brexit and consumer food prices: May 2023 update

Brexit continues to affect the UK economy. The results in this report are updates to the original study of Bakker et al. (2022), showing that higher non-tariff barriers due to Brexit are affecting food price inflation an...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Richard Davies and Josh De Lyon

24 May 2023

CEP discussion paper

New dawn fades: trade, labour and the Brexit exchange rate depreciation

This paper studies consequences of the very large exchange rate depreciation occurring in June 2016 due to the UK electorate unexpectedly voting to leave the European Union. As news of a leave vote came in, the value of ...Read more...

Rui Costa, Swati Dhingra and Stephen Machin

7 December 2022

CEP discussion paper

Non-tariff barriers and consumer prices: evidence from Brexit

Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are the main policy impediment to international trade, yet little is known about their pass-through to prices. This paper exploits the Brexit trade policy shock to quantify how NTBs affect cons...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Richard Davies and Josh De Lyon

1 December 2022

Journal article

Annual Review of Economics:

Expecting Brexit

The Brexit vote precipitated the unraveling of the United Kingdom's membership in the world's deepest economic integration agreement. This article reviews evidence on the realized economic effects of Brexit. The 2016 Bre...Read more...

Swati Dhingra and Thomas Sampson

1 August 2022

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Brexit will exacerbate long-term challenges facing the UK economy

Leaving the EU represents the largest change in the UK's relationship with the rest of the world in half a century. The impact won't be a one-off event. Structural changes will take place over the long term, as capital a...Read more...

Swati Dhingra, Emily Fry, Sophie Hale and Ningyuan Jia

24 June 2022

External report

The economics of Brexit: what have we learned?

This eBook, produced by VoxEU/CEPR and UK in a Changing Europe, brings together leading academic researchers on trade, immigration and political economy to assess what we have learned, 18 months on from its implementatio...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Rebecca Freeman, Kalina Manova, Luisa Opitz, Thomas Prayer, Thomas Sampson and Dilan Yang

24 June 2022

Chapter

The impact of Brexit on UK-EU trade

in The Economics of Brexit: What Have We Learned?

Read more...

Rebecca Freeman, Kalina Manova, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson

23 June 2022

Chapter

Post-Brexit imports, supply chains, and the effect on consumer prices

in The Economics of Brexit: What Have We Learned?

Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Luisa Opitz and Dilan Yang

23 June 2022

Blog

VoxTalks Economics:

The economics of Brexit (podcast)

The latest CEPR ebook investigates the impact of Brexit so far on the economies of the UK and EU. Tim Phillips talks to three of the authors: Jonathan Portes, Thomas Sampson and Sarah Hall....Read more...

Thomas Sampson

23 June 2022

Blog

Vox EU:

The economics of Brexit: a new eBook

What has Brexit meant for the UK economy? Six years on from the referendum, and over a year since the implementation of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, this column introduces a new eBook which brings together ...Read more...

Jonathan Portes

23 June 2022

CentrePiece article

How Brexit has raised UK food prices

Some products imported to the UK from the European Union have been more affected by the post-Brexit trading rules than others. Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Luisa Opitz and Dilan Yang find that leaving th...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Luisa Opitz and Dilan Yang

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article

Trade disruptions in the wake of Brexit

A dramatic fall in the value of UK imports from the European Union relative to the rest of the world occurred when the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into effect. What's more, according to research by R...Read more...

Rebecca Freeman, Kalina Manova, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson

21 June 2022