economics of Brexit: What is at stake? | Oxford Review of Economic Policy | Oxford Academic

The impending British exit (Brexit) from the European Union creates some of the greatest economic challenges—and opportunities—of our time for the United Kingdom. Brexit triggers an array of questions on economic policy across a wide set of areas. The issues are heavily contested and understandably highly politicized. This issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy brings economic analysis to bear on the main issues, with the aim of identifying the principal questions and some of the possible effects, rather than providing any definitive conclusions at this extremely early stage of what is likely to be a very long process. Many of the economic analyses and forecasts published in the run-up to the 23 June 2016 EU referendum were subject to heavy attack, as indeed were experts more generally (Mance, 2016). With only several exceptions (e.g. the Economists for Brexit group1), economic forecasts anticipated negative short- and long-run impacts if Britain were to leave the EU (Dhingra et al., 2016; Kierzenkowski et al., 2016; IMF, 2016). Economic forecasts from HM Treasury (HM Treasury, 2016) attracted particularly strident critique, and were subsequently ridiculed when no recession emerged following the vote to leave (Tapsfield and Dathan, 2016). Nevertheless, one prediction came to pass: sterling fell to 30-year lows after the vote.