VoxEU: Fear of Brexiting: Recent perspectives on the economics of the UK-EU relationship

14 June 2016

The partnership between the UK and the EU has famously been described as “awkward”. A benefit of the Brexit debate is that it has spawned an enormous amount of research addressing issues surrounding the relationship that have been taken for granted for probably too long.

The upcoming referendum on whether or not the UK will remain a member of the EU has propelled a renewal of academic economists’ interest on the political economy of the UK-EU relationship. This is largely because the possibility of a British exit, or ‘Brexit’, is one among a constellation of crises currently inflicting upon the EU. Although one among many, Brexit differs in that it can alone and fully ignite other crises. Brexit raises existential questions about the integration project. It asks questions about the value of membership, the dynamics and distribution of its benefits and costs, and the type of integration that can at least sustain the net benefits we have seen since the 1950s.

One of the few benefits of the ‘Brexit debate’ is that it has fostered a flurry of new research addressing hard and important questions that have not been sufficiently investigated previously. The aim of “The Economics of the UK-EU Relationship” conference, held at Brunel University London on 3 June 2016, was to take stock of some of this new research. This column summarises the presentations and includes several videos recorded at the event.

Full column on VoxEU

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