Unilateral free trade is far more attractive than membership of the single...
Professor Patrick Minford has written extensively about the economics of the European Union and is the author of Trading Places: Consumers v Producers in the New Brexit Economy, which is published...
View ArticleThe Treasury’s economic modelling of Brexit has been proven wrong – yet it...
During the referendum campaign the Treasury produced two forecasts for the UK economy under a ‘full’ Brexit outside the Single Market with WTO rules (the WTO Option): one on the long term outlook a...
View ArticleEven if the EU will not play ball, our optimal strategy is still unilateral...
Mrs May’s eminently reasonable desire to reach a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU faces a major obstacle, over which she has little if any control: the possibility that the EU will not agree to...
View ArticleThe anti-Brexit cognoscenti seem unwilling to welcome any positive economic data
For years now, the cognoscenti of UK economics have complained about the current account deficit and demanded rebalancing; I include in their ranks Nick Clegg, Sir Vince Cable and the CBI, to name a...
View ArticleBrexit free trade critics are wrong to dismiss the classical model of UK trade
Last week, Economists for Free Trade – a 16-strong group of experienced UK applied economists, which I chair – issued the opening parts of its report on the economic future after Brexit. My...
View ArticleThe UK economy is growing and will do so faster after Brexit – even in the...
Disappointingly for the ‘Remoaner’ lobby, the economy is going well. Employment continues to rise relentlessly, and unemployment keeps on falling, to levels below what was once thought to be ‘full...
View ArticleThe Bank of England is finally adjusting to the fact that the Brexit economy...
One of the ideas behind inflation targeting was creating predictability in monetary policy and enabling the ‘forward guidance’, implicit in the target and the actions promised to make it happen, more...
View ArticleNo deal is better than the best deal we could strike with the EU (and they’re...
No deal is actually the best deal. Is that a most ingenious paradox? No, this is hard-headed calculation from Cardiff models of trade and the economy, based on many years of research. Our ‘Remoaner’...
View ArticleHow Brexit will reinvigorate the British economy
In the Economists for Free Trade ‘Budget for Brexit’ launching this week, we proclaim a heresy: Brexit will be good for the British economy. Our in depth research reveals that Brexit will speed up...
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Brexit is already shaping the economy for the better
Conveniently for Consensus economists, the mandatory end-of-year reviews of 2016 and 2017 never included the forecasts they made in August 2016 at the height of their panic over Brexit. The 2016...
View ArticleWhitehall’s leaked Brexit forecasts are clearly based on outdated trade models
Free trade with the world or free trade with Europe? That is the question! Or so the latest Buzzfeed-leaked report from the civil service would have us believe. The report has examined, it would appear...
View ArticleEven the new Civil Service approach seems to show the benefit of Free Trade...
The Civil Service reportedly has redone the Treasury’s Brexit long-term forecasts with a new approach, so say numerous leaks via Buzzfeed and elsewhere. ‘Officials believe the methodology for the new...
View ArticleThe economic consensus on Brexit has got it all wrong
My new Politeia paper reviews the economics of the trade deal that will be struck between the UK and the EU under the international legal order of the WTO. I take the view that what will be agreed must...
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How Brexit warped the minds of otherwise sane economists
Recently, the forecasting record of the Economists for Free Trade has come under fire in the FT from Chris Giles (‘Growth and Brexit- four lessons’), with the assertion that it has been worse than that...
View ArticleHow the Civil Service has misled us about the costs of Brexit and the Customs...
The Civil Service has recently produced a ‘Cross-Whitehall Brexit Analysis’ arguing that a Brexit in which the UK leaves the EU Customs Union and establishes Free Trade Agreements with the EU and...
View ArticleWhy a WTO-based exit from the EU is best for the UK
Rational debate and the movement of opinion swayed by facts and analysis has always been at the centre of our parliamentary affairs. As a nation we want issues to be decided by this rational process....
View ArticleCabinet ministers should be relishing the chance to spend the Brexit dividend
The Civil Service and their allies in the CBI, the IFS and so forth – all of them united against Brexit – are determined to convince this Government that Brexit will be a disaster, in effect...
View ArticleThe threat of post-Brexit border friction is fiction from Big Business
Big manufacturing businesses have good reasons to stay in the EU. They get high levels of protection against international competition, they dominate the EU regulative process through their lobbying...
View ArticleThe public finances tell the tale of the steadily improving economy (despite...
It is now ten years since the financial crisis struck, gaining ferocity in September 2008 with the collapse of Lehman. Recession began in 2008 with a fall in GDP of 0.5%, followed by a fall of 4.2% in...
View ArticleWhy a World Trade Deal – Brexit on WTO terms – would be highly advantageous
Today Economists For Free Trade publish A World Trade Deal: The Complete Guide, namely a WTO-based exit from the EU. This has been made necessary by two things: the mess in our negotiations with the EU...
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