The EU protects agriculture and manufacturing through its commercial policies, namely its tariffs, its non-tariff barriers and the Common Agricultural Policy. By leaving the EU the UK would be able to abandon the EU’s protectionist system in favour of free trade combined with transitional...

The welfare effects of Brexit on the UK, the EU27 and the rest of the world are analysed in a model of international trade under oligopoly. A hard Brexit where the UK trades according to WTO rules is shown to decrease total UK welfare, to have an ambiguous effect on total EU27 welfare, and to...