The Costs and Benefits of Leaving the EU

Gianmarco Ottaviano João Paulo Pessoa Thomas Sampson

LSE/CEP LSE/CEP LSE/CEP

John Van Reenen

LSE/CEP

May 13, 2014

Abstract

What would be the economic effects of the UK leaving the European Union on living stan-
dards of British people? We focus on the effects of trade on welfare net of lower fiscal transfers
to the EU. We use a standard quantitative static general equilibrium trade model with multiple
sectors, countries and intermediates, as in Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2013). Static losses
range between 1.13% and 3.09% of GDP, depending on the assumptions used in our counterfac-
tual scenarios. Including dynamic effects could more than double such losses.

Keywords: Trade, European Union, welfare

JEL Classification: F13 F17 F60

Acknowledgements: We would like to thanks the ESRC for financial support through the
Centre for Economic Performance. We would also like to thank Arnaud Costinot for sharing his
programmes and to Robert Feenstra for helpful comments.

1
1 Introduction

In January 2013 Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron committed to a referendum on EU

membership in 2017. The ruling Conservative party received a boost in opinion polls following this
speech and many argue that “Brexit” would be beneficial for the UK. Many of these reasons are
political - for example repatriating powers back from Brussels. Supporters of the EU also argue
that being part of the EU is important for geopolitical reasons, like supporting a union that reduces
the risk of tyranny and conflict. Here we focus purely on economic arguments.
Eurosceptics (Morris, 2013) believe that trade with EU countries would not be highly affected
by an exit because UK’s trade deficit with the EU provides enough bargaining power to allow the
negotiation of a free trade agreement between the two parties, similar to that enjoyed by Norway
or Switzerland. Secondly, Britain would be able to expand its trade with non-EU countries through
the negotiations of new trade agreements that would not be subjected to constraints imposed by
other EU members. Thirdly, the UK country would be free from the regulatory burden and the
costs associated with the EU membership.
Supporters of EU membership (Springford and Tilford, 2014) argue that it is unrealistic to
expect the same trade terms as smaller countries like Norway or Switzerland, that the UK’s ability
to strike trade deals with other countries will be weakened, not strengthened outside the EU and
that the costs of regulation solely due to the EU are vastly exaggerated. Furthermore, there are
many other aspects that need to be taken into consideration (Harari and Thompson, 2013).
In this paper we focus on the welfare gains arising from trade openness with EU countries to
quantify some of the effects associated with an eventual withdrawal from the EU. Our methodology
is based on Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2013). We define distinct scenarios and calculate the
changes in welfare, measured by real consumption, generated by a UK exit from the EU. We find
that bilateral increases of tariffs and non-tariff barriers between the UK and EU generally lead to a
drop in UK welfare even after accounting for lower fiscal transfers to the EU. We also find that the
UK has even more to lose in a scenario where non-tariff trade costs within EU countries continue
to fall more over time than in other OECD countries, something that seems likely to occur. The
static welfare changes range from -1.13% in an optimistic scenario, to -3.09% in a pessimistic one.
In our setup, trade liberalization tends to increase welfare due to an expansion in the set of
feasible allocations that leads to Pareto superior outcomes. This superiority translates into the
availability of cheaper consumption goods and/or inputs (Eaton and Kortum, 2002). Our baseline

2
calculations, however, leave out many factors that could lead to further losses following an exit from
the EU. For example, the fall in the number of varieties available for consumption (Krugman, 1980)
and productivity decreases due to fall in competition from abroad (Melitz, 2003), together with
the presence of vertical production chains in the UK (Melitz and Redding, 2014), will most likely
increase such losses. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, ceasing migration flows between UK
and other EU countries, one of the EU most basic principles, will also tend to decrease welfare
not only in the source region but also in the destination one (di Giovanni, Levchenko, and Ortega,
2012).
Our analysis is also static in nature and gains from trade can be considerably larger when
we factor in dynamic effects. Trade openness can increase growth rates due to a rise in invest-
ment (Wacziarg, 1998), increases in technology diffusion (Sampson, 2013; Wacziarg, 1998), export
learning effects (Albornoz, Calvo Pardo, Corcos, and Ornelas, 2012; Egger, Larch, Staub, and
Winkelmann, 2011) and greater investment in R&D (Bloom, Draca, and Van Reenen, 2011; Keller,
1999, 2002).
An alternative way to evaluate the impact of an exit and take into account part of these
dynamic effects is to use the results of simple, less theory-based empirical studies of the effects
of EU membership. Baier, Bergstrand, Egger, and McLaughlin (2008) find that after controlling
for other determinants of bilateral trade, EU members trade substantially more with other EU
countries than they do with members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Their
estimates imply that, if the UK leaves the EU and joins EFTA, its trade with countries in the EU
will fall by about a quarter. Combining this with the estimates from Feyrer (2009) implies that
leaving the EU (and joining EFTA) will reduce UK income by between 6.3% and 9.5%. These
estimates are much higher than the costs obtained from the static structural trade model, implying
that dynamic effects from trade are important.
The structure of the paper is as follows. We describe the data and present our counterfactual
analysis in Section 2. In Section 3 we use alternative non-structural approaches to calculate welfare
losses. We offer concluding comments in Section 4. Section

2 Empirical Analysis

We quantify the effects of changes in tariff and/or trade costs that will affect the EU-UK relationship
in the case of an exit. Our methodology is heavily based on Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2013)

3
- please check Section 4 of that paper for details on the methodology used here.

2.1 Data

We use the World Input-Output Database (WIOD)1 . This database encompasses 40 countries and
an additional region denominated the ’rest of the world’. It covers 35 sectors, which we further
aggregate into 31 sectors as in Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2013) to account for small trade in
some sectors around the world.
We collect information on the applied most favoured nation (MFN) tariff by the EU from the
World Trade Organization (WTO) website, which provides information on tariffs at the product
level (HS classification) for all tradable goods. We also use the United Nations (UN) Comtrade
bilateral database at the product level. These two datasets permit us to calculate an average MFN
tariff at the sector level for UK imports (exports), from (to) the EU by using import (export) value
at the product level as weights. The resulting average MFN tariffs for imports and exports from/to
the EU can be seen in Table 1, that summarizes the UK trade information at the sector level.
The table split the sectors between ’Goods’ and ’Services’. We can note that there is a substantial
amount of trade even under the Services sectors.
From this point on, whenever we mention EU the reader should have in mind that it encompasses
the EU 28 countries minus the UK and Croatia. The most intensively traded good in the UK/EU
bilateral relationship is ’Transport Equipment’, that includes automobiles, amounting to 95.7 billion
of US dollars in 2011. This sector also possesses one of the highest average tariffs: 8.09% for imports
from the EU and 7.22% for exports to the EU. Note that most part of this trade is composed by
imports (60.4 billion, or 63%). On the other hand, the trade champion among services, the sector
’Renting of Machinery and Equip. and Other Business Services’, is more intensively exported (USD
53 billions) than imported (USD 28 billion) by the UK. Financial services also are responsible for a
significant trade share. Together, the two former sectors are responsible for more than two thirds of
the flows of services between the UK and the EU. In general, we can see that the UK holds a deficit
among goods and a surplus among services, with reasonable variability within the two groups.

1
For more details on how this database is constructed, see Dietzenbacher, Los, Stehrer, Timmer, and de Vries
(2013).

4
 Table 1: UK Trade Statistics in 2011
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Total Imports Exports
Sector EU Trade Non-EU EU MFN Tariff Non-EU EU MFN Tariff

Goods
Transport Equipment 95,723 30,753 60,382 8.09% 49,468 35,341 7.22%
Chemicals and Chemical Products 74,797 17,079 34,854 2.71% 24,265 39,943 2.16%
Electrical and Optical Equipment 61,506 36,176 38,057 1.97% 27,783 23,449 1.55%
Food, Beverages and Tobacco 56,463 14,706 42,294 7.26% 14,479 14,168 4.96%
Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear Fuel 45,610 12,432 17,194 2.69% 11,299 28,416 2.81%
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal 44,769 16,890 26,150 2.05% 18,202 18,619 1.89%
Machinery, Nec 39,624 13,809 24,717 2.05% 24,328 14,907 2.13%
Mining and Quarrying 28,679 48,929 8,512 0.00% 17,976 20,167 0.00%
Textiles and Textile Products; Leather, Leather and Footwear 20,178 23,282 11,912 9.58% 4,074 8,267 9.70%
Rubber and Plastics 16,042 5,400 9,290 5.35% 4,133 6,751 5.05%
Manufacturing, Nec; Recycling 15,909 9,188 9,730 1.71% 6,889 6,179 1.69%
Pulp, Paper, Paper , Printing and Publishing 15,538 4,516 10,539 0.04% 7,546 4,999 0.10%
Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and Fishing 11,432 6,968 8,080 5.90% 1,677 3,352 5.63%
Other Non-Metallic Mineral 5,673 1,909 3,553 3.78% 1,959 2,120 3.32%
Wood and Products of Wood and Cork 3,413 1,493 2,942 2.35% 237 471 3.62%
Total Trade in Goods 535,356 243,530 308,206 214,315 227,149

Services
Renting of Machinery & Equip. and Other Business Activities 72,628 28,017 19,618 - 31,989 53,009 -
Financial Intermediation 50,145 18,285 3,281 - 50,761 46,864 -
Services Nec (4) 13,561 10,790 6,524 - 8,548 7,036 -

5
Post and Telecommunications 8,733 5,094 2,521 - 2,146 6,212 -
Air Transport 8,304 5,922 6,790 - 6,073 1,514 -
Hotels and Restaurants 6,196 18,319 4,312 - 10,352 1,884 -
Retail, Wholesale and Repair Activities Nec (1) 4,701 3,770 4,110 - 2,302 591 -
Other Supporting and Auxiliary Transport Activities (3) 4,321 1,318 1,706 - 1,742 2,615 -
Construction 3,760 587 1,890 - 383 1,869 -
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply 2,025 686 1,563 - 340 462 -
Retail Trade, Except of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles (2) 1,216 457 936 - 989 280 -
Inland Transport 1,002 6,703 782 - 3,335 220 -
Real Estate Activities 967 1,752 191 - 97 776 -
Health and Social Work 906 2,007 831 - 410 74 -
Education 357 856 214 - 3,323 142 -
Water Transport 341 3,705 256 - 13,588 85 -
Total Trade in Services 179,163 108,268 55,525 136,378 123,633

Total Trade 714,519 351,798 363,731 350,693 350,782

Source: WIOD, WTO and UN Comtrade.
Notes: Table provides 2011 UK import and export values with EU and non-EU, as well as tariff costs for all WIOD sectors. All values in millions of USD. EU
is defined as EU 28 minus the UK and Croatia. Column (1) equals the sum of columns (3) and (6). Tariffs by product are collected from the WTO database.
Tariffs shown are weighted averages of products tariffs, where we use the import and export values by product between the UK and the EU as weights to
compute the numbers seen in columns 5 and 8, respectively. Trade by product comes from UN Comtrade.
(1) Retail Sale, Maintenance and Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles; Commission Trade, Except of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles
(2) Includes ’Repair of Household Goods’
(3) Includes ’Activities of Travel Agencies’
(4) Public Admin and Defence; Compulsory Social Security; Other Community, Social and Personal Services; Private Households with Employed Persons
2.2 Counterfactuals

In this section we present counterfactual exercises associated with the UK leaving the EU. We
aim to quantify changes in welfare (real UK consumption) coming from three distinct sources: i)
changes in goods tariffs, ii) changes in non-tariff barriers, and iii) future rises/falls in non-tariff
barriers. We assume that firms are perfectly competitive throughout the analysis.
We consider two different scenarios one optimistic and another pessimistic. In the pessimistic
case we assume that the UK will apply the MFN tariffs seen in column (4) of Table 1 on goods
imported from the EU, while the EU will apply the tariffs observed in column (7) on goods origi-
nating from the UK. This seems reasonable in a first moment after the withdrawal, but it is likely
that the UK will be able to negotiate a better tariff deal in the medium term such as Norway or
Switzerland. Hence, in our optimistic scenario we consider that tariffs on goods continue to be zero
between the two parts.
Another important source of trade costs around the world is due to non-tariff barriers. Non-tariff
barriers are related to language, if countries share a border, if countries share a common currency,
legal barriers, transport for goods, travel for (many) services, search and other transaction costs
for both goods and services, etc (Anderson and van Wincoop, 2004; Head and Mayer, 2013). Many
authors point out that such costs are higher than the tariff ones (Anderson and van Wincoop,
2004; Novy, 2013; LooiKee, Nicita, and Olarreaga, 2009). In fact, most part of the negotiations
regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the USA aims
to diminish non-tariff barriers between the two parts.
To incorporate non-tariff barriers we use information provided by Berden, Francois, Tamminen,
Thelle, and Wymenga (2009, 2013). The authors calculate detailed tariff equivalents of non-tariff
barriers between the USA and the EU+ (including the UK), using econometric technics and business
surveys. They also calculate which part of these costs could be reduced since some of the expenses
are linked to distance and other components that cannot be changed. We collect information on
sectors that can be easily matched to our classification shown in Table 1. The sectors used, their
non-tariff costs (in tariff equivalent terms) and the share of the costs that can be reduced are shown
in Table A.1 in the Appendix.
Certainly, we do not believe that the UK would face the same costs as the US in a case of
withdrawal. So, in our optimistic scenario we assume that the UK would face one quarter (1/4)
of the reducible cost faced by the USA, while in our pessimistic scenario we assume that they

6
would face two thirds (2/3). We calculate a weighted average of these cost shares, having a total
EU/UK trade in each sector as weights and considering the subset of sectors shown in the Appendix
table, which include several of the relevant sectors in the EU/UK relationship. This calculation
leads to an increase of non-tariff costs of 2% and 5.37% in our optimistic and pessimistic scenarios,
respectively. We then apply such costs to all sectors in our economy.
We also consider that the intra-EU trade costs are falling over time (Ilzkovitz, Dierx, Kovacs, and
Sousa, 2007), and this rate is approximately 40% faster than in other OECD countries according to
Méjean and Schwellnus (2009), which use a panel data of French firms to study price convergence
in different markets between 1995 and 2004. We consider that in 10 years from now non-tariff
barriers inside the EU would be relatively smaller and the UK would not benefit from this fact. In
our pessimistic scenario we assume that intra-EU non-tariff costs continue to fall 40% faster than
in the rest of the world. This may not necessarily be true since OECD does not include countries
like China, which has seen a rapid decrease in trade costs. Hence, in our optimistic scenario we
assume that intra-EU barriers fall only 20% faster than in the rest of the world.
To calculate this last counterfactual we have to assume a measure of price differences across the
European Union. We use a rough measure from Eaton and Kortum (2002) of 49%2 , meaning that
if the UK imported (exported) all goods from (to) other European countries prices would be 49%
higher. Naturally, part of this price difference may not be reducible. In all our scenarios we assume
that just part of this cost can in fact potentially fall over time, 55%, which is the same share of
non-tariff barriers that are actionable in the EU-USA trade case. To be even more conservative,
in our pessimistic case we further assume that two thirds of the potentially reducible share will
actually diminish throughout the years, while in the optimistic case we assume that such share is
only one half. Then, using the estimates from Méjean and Schwellnus (2009), we calculate that
future falls in non-tariff barriers in the next ten years will lead to a fall of 10.54% and 5.68% in our
pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, respectively3 .

2
Table II, UK row average of the trade cost values.
3
For example, in the pessimistic case we start from trade cost of τ = 0.49. Given our assumptions, only 0.49 ∗
0.55 ∗ 2/3 = 0.18 p.p. can fall over time. This implies that the price ratio between the UK and other EU countries is
equal to 1.18. To find the change over time, we use the values of Méjean and Schwellnus (2009) (Table 1, column 3)
10
to calculate reduction in price dispersion in ten years from now: 1.18 − (1.18)(1−0.182) = 0.16, where -0.182 comes
from their estimation equation. Finally, the total change in trade cost is given by (1 + 0.49 − 0.16)/(1 + 0.49) − 1,
which is close to -0.1054.

7
 Table 2: Welfare Changes due to UK Withdrawal from the EU
Multiple Sectors
Intermediates

Panel A: Optimistic Scenario

Due to Increase in EU/UK Tradable Tariffs (0%) 0%
Due to Increase in EU/UK Non-Tariff Barriers (+2.01%) -0.4%
Due to Future Falls in EU/UK Non-Tariff Barriers (-5.68%) -1.26%
Due to Fiscal Benefit 0.53%
Total Welfare Change -1.13%

Panel B: Pessimistic Scenario

Due to Increase in EU/UK Tradable Tariffs (MFN EU Tariffs) -0.14%
Due to Increase in EU/UK Non-Tariff Barriers (+5.37%) -0.93%
Due to Future Falls in EU/UK Non-Tariff Barriers (-10.54%) -2.55%
Due to Fiscal Benefit 0.53%
Total Welfare Change -3.09%
Notes: Counterfactuals changes in welfare, measured by changes in real GDP. Methodology based on Costinot
and Rodriguez-Clare (2013). Fiscal benefit information comes from Treasury (2013). EU is defined as EU 28
minus the UK and Croatia.
Panel A shows an optimistic scenario: tariff on goods remain zero, non-tariff barriers are equal to 1/4 of the
reducible barriers faced by USA exporters to the EU (2.01% increase), and that in the next ten years the intra-EU
non-tariff barriers will fall 20% faster than in the rest of the world (fall of 5.68%).
Panel B shows a pessimistic scenario: tariff on goods are the MFN tariffs imposed by the EU (see Table 1),
non-tariff barriers are equal to 2/3 of the reducible barriers faced by USA exporters to the EU (5.37% increase),
and that in the next ten years the intra-EU non-tariff barriers will fall 40% faster than in the rest of the world
(fall of 10.54%).

Our counterfactual welfare calculations are shown in Table 2. All our results consider that
the economy is composed by multiple sectors and that intermediate goods can be traded across
countries. In our optimistic scenario we can see that an increase in non-tariff barriers lead to a
welfare fall of 0.4%. Future falls of intra-EU non-tariff barriers over the next 10 years could lead to
additional benefits not reaped by the UK of 1.26%. How large are these numbers when compared
to some costs generated by the EU membership? For example, Treasury (2013) predicts that future
fiscal deficits of the UK with the EU will be around 0.53% (or £ 8.6 billion) of the UK GDP (2013).
Taking this benefit into account, the UK would be loosing a total of 1.13% of its GDP in the case
of an exit.
In our pessimistic scenario, however, we see that costs of a withdrawal can be much higher.
Panel B shows that if the EU and the UK impose MFN tariffs on goods, the drop in real GDP
would be around 0.14%. The increase in non-tariff barriers would lead to an additional loss of 0.93%
and future falls in intra-EU trade barriers to 2.55% potential gains not internalized by the UK.
Discounting the fiscal benefits implies a total welfare fall of 3.09%. This is a pessimistic scenario,
but not an unrealistic one. So the UK has a lot at stake here. Moreover, the numbers presented

8
should be seen as a lower bound for losses, since there are many other sources of gains from trade
not considered in our counterfactual analysis.

3 Non-structural estimates

In the previous section we attempted to quantify the welfare effects of the UK leaving the EU using
a quantitative model of international trade. An alternative approach is to use existing empirical
estimates of the effects of EU membership to infer the impact of leaving the EU on UK income.
In particular, we can decompose the question into two parts. First, what effect will leaving the
EU have on the UK’s trade with the rest of the world? Second, what is the effect of changes in
trade levels on income? There exist substantial literatures addressing both the effect of joining an
economic integration agreement (EIA), such as the EU, on trade and the effect of trade on income.
Suppose that if the UK leaves the EU it will become a member of the European Free Trade
Association (EFTA). Does EU membership cause a country to trade more with other EU members
than EFTA membership? Baier, Bergstrand, Egger, and McLaughlin (2008) address exactly this
question using a gravity model of bilateral trade augmented with dummy variables for which EIAs
the exporter and importer belong to. In particular, they include dummy variables for both countries
being in the EU, both countries being in EFTA, one country being in the EU and the other in
EFTA and for both countries belonging to any other EIA. Importantly, they control for endogeneity
of selection into the formation of EIAs using country-pair fixed effects with panel data. They find
robust evidence that being a member of the EU leads a country to trade significantly more with
other members of the EU than if it were only a member of EFTA. Quantitatively, their estimates
imply that leaving the EU and joining EFTA will reduce the UK’s trade with EU members by
25%.4
To predict the change in the UK’s overall trade we also need to know how leaving the EU
would affect the UK’s trade with non-EU members. Baier, Bergstrand, Egger, and McLaughlin
(2008) estimates suggest that whether a country is a member of the EU or EFTA does not have a
significant effect on its trade with EFTA members. However, their estimates do not address how
EU membership affects trade with countries outside of both the EU and EFTA. Structural gravity
models such as that developed by Egger, Larch, Staub, and Winkelmann (2011) can be used to
4
This figure is calculated using the estimates in Table 6, column 1. Both countries being in the EU increases trade
by e0.48 − 1 = 62%, while one country being in the EU and the other in EFTA increases trade by e0.19 − 1 = 21%.
Therefore, if a country leaves the EU and joins EFTA trade with EU members declines by (e0.19 − e0.48 )/e0.48 = 25%.

9
infer the general equilibrium effects of EIAs on trade between all country-pairs, but we are not
aware of any work that applies the structural gravity methodology to estimate the effects of EU
membership. Instead, we will rely on reduced form gravity model estimates of the trade diversion
effects of EIAs. Studies of trade diversion typically find little evidence that joining an EIA leads
to a reduction in trade with countries outside of the EIA. For example, Magee (2008) fails to find
robust evidence of significant trade diversion effects from EIAs. Therefore, we will assume that
leaving the EU will not affect the UK’s trade with the rest of the world.
To quantify the effect of trade on income we will use the estimates of Feyrer (2009). Using data
on the air and sea distances between countries, Feyrer uses changes in the cost of shipping goods
via air relative to sea as an instrument for trade in a regression of income on trade. Since the
instrument is time varying, Feyrer is able to improve upon the cross-section estimates of Frankel
and Romer (1999) by using country fixed effects to control for time invariant unobservables that
affect income levels. Feyrer concludes that the elasticity of trade to income is probably between
one-half and three-quarters. Feyrer’s estimation strategy implies that his estimates capture both
the direct effect of higher trade on income and also other indirect effects of increased proximity
between countries such as variation in FDI and knowledge diffusion. Thus, the estimates we obtain
in this section should be interpreted as including some of the non-trade channels through which
leaving the EU will affect UK income in addition to the direct effect of changes in the UK’s trade.
Combining these numbers we can obtain a reduced form estimate of the effect of leaving the
EU and joining EFTA on UK income. Since 50.4% of the UK’s trade is with the EU, a 25% fall in
trade with EU members will reduce the UK’s overall trade by 12.6%. Combining this with Feyrer’s
estimate that the elasticity of income to trade is between one-half and three-quarters implies that
leaving the EU and joining EFTA will reduce the UK’s income by between 6.3% and 9.5%.
The reduced form approach used in this section has two principal advantages over the structural
approach used earlier in the paper. First, it requires less detailed assumptions about what the
relationship between the UK and the EU would be following a UK exit. The structural estimates
required assumptions about both the future level of tariffs between the EU and the UK and the
extent to which the UK would share in future reductions in non-tariff barriers within the EU. By
contrast, the reduced form estimates are based on the simple and plausible assumption that if the
UK leaves the EU it will join EFTA. Second, while the quantitative trade model used above is
designed to capture only the static gains from trade, reduced form estimates of the effect of trade
on income should capture both static and dynamic effects. The disadvantage of the reduced form

10
approach is that it relies on the existence of unbiased empirical estimates. While we have based
our calculations on estimates obtained using best practice empirical methodologies, sampling error
and identification challenges inevitably mean that some degree of uncertainty must be attached
to the estimates. Overall, the calculations in this section should be viewed as a robustness check
on the plausibility of the predictions obtained from the quantitative trade model. The reduced
form estimates of the income effect of leaving the EU are higher than those obtained from the
quantitative trade model, but they reinforce the conclusion that leaving the EU is likely to have a
sizeable negative effect on UK welfare.

4 Conclusion

Withdrawing from the EU is a dangerous move for the UK. Using the Costinot and Rodriguez-
Clare (2013) methodology, we generate counterfactual scenarios and show that UK future losses
due to this move can sum up to 1.23% of the GDP in real terms in our optimistic scenario, and to
a drop of 3.09% in our pessimistic one. When we factor in more realistic dynamic losses from lower
productivity growth, a conservative estimate would double losses to 2.2% of GDP even in the most
optimistic case. In the pessimistic case, there would be income falls of 6.3% to 9.5% of GDP, a loss
of a similar size to that resulting from the global financial crisis of 2008/09. These numbers show
that leaving the EU appears to be a risky gamble.
In any case, we should have in mind that these numbers are likely to be larger in reality, since
many other welfare improving channels associated with EU trade such as immigration, increases
in productivity, increases in R&D intensity, vertical production chains, to cite just a few, are not
considered in our analysis.

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Appendix

Table A.1: Sector and Non-tariff Barriers (NTB) used in the Counterfactuals
NTB Cost EU+/USA Reducible share Weight
Sector (tariff equivalent) of NTB (total trade UK/EU)
Transport Equipment 22.1% 0.53 95723
Chemicals and Chemical Products 23.9% 0.63 74797
Post and Telecommunications 11.7% 0.70 8733
Electrical and Optical Equipment 6.5% 0.41 61506
Financial Intermediation 11.3% 0.49 50145
Food, Beverages and Tobacco 5.8% 0.53 56463
Construction 4.6% 0.38 3760
Renting of Machinery & Equip. and Other Business Activities 14.9% 0.51 72628
Services Nec (*) 4.4% 0.37 13561
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal 11.9% 0.62 44769
Textiles and Textile Products; Leather, Leather and Footwear 19.2% 0.50 20178
Wood and Products of Wood and Cork 11.3% 0.60 3413
Source: WIOD and Author’s compilation of a subset of the sectors presented in Tables 3.3 and 4.2 of Berden,
Francois, Tamminen, Thelle, and Wymenga (2009).
Notes: Table provides non-tariff costs (in tariff equivalent terms) of trade flows from the USA to the EU+ (column
1). Also provides the share of costs that are potentially reducible (column 2). In our counterfactuals we assume
either (i) that after the exit the UK faces 1/4 of the reducible costs seen by the USA (optimistic scenario) or (ii)
that after the exit the UK faces 2/3 of the reducible costs seen by the USA (pessimistic scenario). We then use
total EU trade as weights (column 3) to compute a weighted average of these costs and apply to all sectors in all
our counterfactuals. EU is defined as EU 28 minus the UK and Croatia. EU+ includes the UK.
(*) Includes ’Repair of Household Goods’

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