IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbops/2025379.html

Exploring EU-UK trade and investment four years after Brexit

Author

Listed:
  • Committee, International Relations
  • Vergara Caffarelli, Filippo
  • de Almeida, Ana M.
  • Lovin, Horatiu

Abstract

This paper looks at how Brexit has affected trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) between the United Kingdom and the EU. In 2020 the United Kingdom and the EU signed the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) , establishing the post-Brexit relationship and, in particular, a tariff-free area for goods produced in either of the two economies. However, non-tariff barriers to the trading of goods and services have emerged. Moreover, the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU has affected its attractiveness as an investment target. We analyse recent developments in UK imports and exports with the EU and the rest of the world, in both goods and services, including financial services and tourism. Our estimates suggest that, after the Brexit transition period, UK exports to the EU contracted by almost 40%, due to the emergence of non-tariff barriers with the EU, and the fact that no significant UK trade flows were redirected to other partners. Finally, the analysis of product-level data on German, French, Italian and Spanish exports to the United Kingdom has confirmed the significant negative impact of Brexit, especially for goods highly exposed or highly sensitive to increases in trade costs. The FDI analysis begins with a conjunctural assessment that includes recent trends in EU-UK FDI at a broad level (including sectoral and geographical details), a breakdown of foreign affiliates and an investigation of new FDI projects and jobs in the United Kingdom. The analysis continues with developments in the UK financial sector in terms of the real economy, FDI flows, banks, insurance companies and pension funds, and the evolving status of the United Kingdom as a leading global financial centre. Finally, our analysis also provides an econometric investigation into the potential impact of Brexit on EU-UK FDI, using a gravity model approach. […] JEL Classification: F14, F15, F21

Suggested Citation

  • Committee, International Relations & Vergara Caffarelli, Filippo & de Almeida, Ana M. & Lovin, Horatiu, 2025. "Exploring EU-UK trade and investment four years after Brexit," Occasional Paper Series 379, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbops:2025379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpops/ecb.op379.en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Lucio, Juan & Mínguez, Raúl & Minondo, Asier & Requena, Francisco, 2024. "The negative impact of disintegration on trade: The case of Brexit," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Massimiliano Pisani & Filippo Vergara Caffarelli, 2018. "What will Brexit mean for the British and euro-area economies? A model-based assessment of trade regimes," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1163, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Campos, Nauro F. & Coricelli, Fabrizio & Franceschi, Emanuele, 2022. "Institutional integration and productivity growth: Evidence from the 1995 enlargement of the European Union," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    4. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2019. "Rank regularized estimation of approximate factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 78-96.
    5. Swati Dhingra & Hanwei Huang & Gianmarco Ottaviano & João Paulo Pessoa & Thomas Sampson & John Van Reenen, 2017. "The costs and benefits of leaving the EU: trade effects," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 32(92), pages 651-705.
    6. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2009. "Estimating the effects of free trade agreements on international trade flows using matching econometrics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 63-76, February.
    7. Spital, Tajda & van Aerssen, Katrin Forster, 2023. "The impact of Brexit on UK trade and labour markets," Economic Bulletin Articles, European Central Bank, vol. 3.
    8. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    9. Fabrizio Coricelli & Nauro F. Campos & Emanuele Franceschi, 2022. "Institutional integration and productivity growth," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-04368051, HAL.
    10. Hylke Vandenbussche & William Connell & Wouter Simons, 2022. "Global value chains, trade shocks and jobs: An application to Brexit," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(8), pages 2338-2369, August.
    11. Ashenfelter, Orley & Card, David, 1985. "Using the Longitudinal Structure of Earnings to Estimate the Effect of Training Programs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(4), pages 648-660, November.
    12. Richard Baldwin, 2007. "Trade Effects of the Euro: a Comparison of Estimators," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 22, pages 780-818.
    13. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    14. Douch, Mustaph & Huw Edwards, T., 2021. "The Brexit policy shock: Were UK services exports affected, and when?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 248-263.
    15. Jushan Bai, 2009. "Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1229-1279, July.
    16. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    17. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2017. "Principal Components and Regularized Estimation of Factor Models," Papers 1708.08137, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2017.
    18. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    19. Pegkas, Panagiotis, 2015. "The impact of FDI on economic growth in Eurozone countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 124-132.
    20. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    21. Alejandro G Graziano & Kyle Handley & Nuno Limão, 2021. "Brexit Uncertainty and Trade Disintegration," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(635), pages 1150-1185.
    22. Mancini, Michele & Conteduca, Francesco Paolo & Borin, Alessandro, 2024. "The Real-Time Impact of the War on Russian Imports: A Synthetic Control Method Approach," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 433-447, October.
    23. Mustapha Douch & Terence Huw Edwards, 2022. "The bilateral trade effects of announcement shocks: Brexit as a natural field experiment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 305-329, March.
    24. Saia, Alessandro, 2017. "Choosing the open sea: The cost to the UK of staying out of the euro," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 82-98.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mustapha Douch & Terence Huw Edwards, 2022. "The bilateral trade effects of announcement shocks: Brexit as a natural field experiment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 305-329, March.
    2. Giovanni Cerulli & Silvia Nenci & Luca Salvatici & Antonio Zinilli, 2022. "Currency Unions and Global Value Chains: The Impact of the Euro on the Italian Value Added Exports," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 8(2), pages 373-407, July.
    3. Benjamin Born & Gernot J Müller & Moritz Schularick & Petr Sedláček, 2019. "The Costs of Economic Nationalism: Evidence from the Brexit Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2722-2744.
    4. Cerqua, Augusto & Montalbano, Pierluigi & Temerbulatova, Zhansaya, 2024. "A decade of Eurasian integration: An ex-post non-parametric assessment of the Eurasian economic union," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    5. Keegan Harris & Anish Agarwal & Chara Podimata & Zhiwei Steven Wu, 2022. "Strategyproof Decision-Making in Panel Data Settings and Beyond," Papers 2211.14236, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    6. Gunnella, Vanessa & Lebastard, Laura & Lopez-Garcia, Paloma & Serafini, Roberta & Mattioli, Alessandro Zona, 2021. "The impact of the euro on trade: two decades into monetary union," Occasional Paper Series 283, European Central Bank.
    7. Güzin Bayar, 2018. "Estimating export equations: a survey of the literature," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 629-672, March.
    8. Born, Benjamin & Müller, Gernot J. & Schularick, Moritz & Sedlacek, Petr, 2017. "The economic consequences of the Brexit Vote," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87174, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Harry Aytug, 2026. "To Adopt or Not to Adopt: Heterogeneous Trade Effects of the Euro," Papers 2601.19664, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    10. Riste Ichev & Rok Spruk, 2026. "Pricing Catastrophe: How Extreme Political Shocks Reprice Sovereign Risk, Beliefs, and Growth Expectations," Papers 2601.20724, arXiv.org.
    11. Douch, Mustaph & Huw Edwards, T., 2021. "The Brexit policy shock: Were UK services exports affected, and when?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 248-263.
    12. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Susan Athey & David A. Hirshberg & Guido W. Imbens & Stefan Wager, 2021. "Synthetic Difference-in-Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(12), pages 4088-4118, December.
    13. Campos, Nauro F., 2019. "B for Brexit: A Survey of the Economics Academic Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 12134, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Cho, Sang-Wook (Stanley) & Wong, Sally, 2025. "Monetary regimes and regional economies: A counterfactual perspective from two euro opt-outs," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Jun Du & Oleksandr Shepotylo & Xiaocan Yuan, 2025. "How did the Brexit uncertainty impact services exports of UK firms?," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 80-104, March.
    16. Mellace, Giovanni & Pasquini, Alessandra, 2019. "Identify More, Observe Less: Mediation Analysis: Mediation Analysis Synthetic Control," Discussion Papers on Economics 12/2019, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    17. Ana Venâncio & João Pereira dos Santos, 2021. "The effect of Brexit on British workers living in the EU," Working Papers REM 2021/0197, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    18. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Causal Models for Longitudinal and Panel Data: A Survey," Papers 2311.15458, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    19. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & David Hirshberg, 2023. "Large-Sample Properties of the Synthetic Control Method under Selection on Unobservables," Papers 2311.13575, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    20. Victor Chernozhukov & Kaspar Wüthrich & Yinchu Zhu, 2019. "Inference on average treatment effects in aggregate panel data settings," CeMMAP working papers CWP32/19, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbops:2025379. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.