The UK's decision to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum created substantial uncertainty for UK businesses. The nature of this uncertainty is different from that of a typical uncertainty shock because of its length, breadth and political complexity.
We study stock market reactions to the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016 in order to assess investors’ expectations about the effects of leaving the European Union on the UK economy.
Immigration remains a highly antagonistic issue and its purported effects in the labour market are still contestable. Against this background, the UK looks set to undertake a large overhaul of its immigration policy following the decision to leave the EU.
The aim of this paper is to provide quantitative information about the position of the UK in the network of global value chains (GVCs) and to discuss its implications for the UK's post‐Brexit trade policy. We find that the UK has become much less integrated into global production networks than other EU countries over the period 2000–14, and is almost unique among EU countries in that the domestic content of its exports increased over this period.
This paper reviews UK industrial policy in the context of Brexit and weak productivity performance. It considers proposals made in a recent White Paper as well as more general arguments for reform
In this chapter, we provide an overview of the UK’s recent economic performance and compare it with our and other forecasters’ projections in 2016. We then present our current forecasts, based on our smooth-Brexit base case.
David Phillips, associate director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, discusses the current health of local government finance, and the prospects of a 'fairer' funding formula helping improve the situation.
In a speech on Tuesday 9th October, the Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt, touched upon a number of important issues taking centre stage in current debates on UK aid spending, including Brexit and the role of private sector investment. These two substantive issues are interesting within the context of broader developments in UK aid spending in recent years. A new report by researchers from the IFS and the Center for Global Development (CGD) analyses how UK aid is spent and the potential drivers of these changes.
In this chapter, we focus on one particular aspect of Brexit – changes in trade barriers with the EU – and examine the consequences these might have for different industries, workers and regions.
The government is undertaking a ‘Fair Funding Review’ in conjunction with councils. The aim of this review is to propose a new system for allocating funding between councils, which will be based on updated and improved methods for estimating councils’ differing revenue-raising capacities and differing spending needs. The IFS and CIPFA hosted a roundtable on 12th September 2018 to discuss some of the big questions the review needs to address and tricky issues it needs to contend with. This presentation, which kicked off the roundtable, sets out the key findings from recent IFS research on the Fair Funding Review which speaks to these issues.
When it comes to big decisions around Brexit and independence it is dangerous to pretend that the political choice does not require some serious economic choices too, says IFS Director Paul Johnson in The Times.
The last time the government updated its assessment of what different councils in England need to spend was in 2013. And since 2016, the cuts the government has been making to the grants it gives to councils have taken into account the council tax revenues they raised in 2015-16. This has left things in need of reform – we cannot end up with a local government finance system where funding in the 2020s and 2030s simply depends on the distribution of grants and council tax revenues in the mid 2010s.
Major changes are afoot in English local government finance. The Fair Funding Review will see new methods and formulae to redistribute funding between councils according to their assessed spending needs and revenue-raising capacity. The expansion of the business rates retention scheme is likely to see the abolition of revenue support grant. And changes to the adult social care system could have big impacts on the cost of the system and how it is financed. In this article for the Municipal Journal, David Phillips, discusses the big picture questions that need to considered along the policy detail in coming years.
With substantial budget cuts and ongoing major reforms to the finance system (such as business rates retention and the Fair Funding Review), what scope is there for fair and sustainable funding for local government? This presentation, by David Phillips, IFS Associate Director, was given at the CIPFA annual conference in Bournemouth.
It is now just over two years since the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Since then, it is fair to say that there has been a confusing barrage of apparently contradictory claims about the state of the economy.
The Prime Minister has committed to spending increases for the NHS over the next five years and promised this would be at least partly funded by a ‘Brexit dividend’. This is not the first time that NHS spending increases have been linked to the UK’s exit from the EU – the now infamous £350 million per week pledge was a significant feature of the 2016 referendum campaign.
A response to the consultation from the Finance Committee of the National Assembly for Wales concerning preparations for replacing European Union funding for Wales
How should we fund social care? When you try to answer such a big question, you quickly realise there are a whole host of underlying questions one needs to think about.
