EU28 Capital Market Perspectives of a Hard BREXIT: Theory, Empirical Findings and Policy Options

Key aspects covered refer to the cost of leaving the EU and in particular the implications for corporate bond risk premiums in the UK and the Eurozone: The gap between the interest rates of corporate bonds and government bonds could increase in the UK and Eurozone, respectively, as a result of BREXIT where the 2016 BREXIT referendum itself is considered to be a first BREXIT event (see the empirical findings), followed by the main BREXIT event, namely the day of officially leaving the EU – possibly as a No-deal BREXIT. It is as yet not clear what type of BREXIT will be implemented – hard versus soft – and it is also unclear what type of free trade agreement the EU and the UK could accomplish post-BREXIT. However, it is obviously necessary to carefully consider the background of the BREXIT dynamics and to then refer to various versions of BREXIT if one is to understand the inherent politico-economic dynamics of BREXIT – with a No-deal case representing an analytical benchmark which most politicians in the British Parliament obviously would want to avoid; a simple way to indeed avoid this case, with obvious high costs for the British economy, is not easy to discern as the UK’s political system is fractured. If the safe-haven status of the UK should be impaired by BREXIT, the rise of government bond interest rates by 0.3 percent would stand for the same burden as the net UK contribution to the EU.