Economic performance since the EU referendum

The impact of the Brexit vote can now begin to be evaluated with greater accuracy than previous forecasts, thanks to the emergence of new data. In the run-up to the UK's referendum on membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016, a number of research reports estimated the likely economic impact of Brexit (see, for example, Dhingra et al. 2017, HM Treasury 2016 and Kierzenkowski et al. 2016). Most studies predicted that Brexit would have a negative impact on UK GDP over the long term. Before and after the vote, a few studies have also attempted forecasts of economic outcomes in the short term, with varying degrees of accuracy. Typically, these studies have either been based on theoretical modelling or, if they drew on data, they have only used information from before the vote (De Lyon et al. 2017). Now, however, some post-referendum data are available, which can be used to evaluate the health of the economy since the Brexit referendum.