Brexit Uncertainty and the Northern Ireland Protocol: The consequences for Northern Ireland firms and their trade within the UK's Internal Market

在英国决定退出欧盟之后，英国企业和工人面临着一段经济不确定时期。尽管英国已于2020年1月底脱欧，但不确定性依然存在，对北爱尔兰的企业来说尤其如此。我们的研究旨在研究英国脱欧不确定性的两个特定方面及其对北爱尔兰的影响。企业的生产和出口决策可能会因为缺乏关于英国内部、NI和大不列颠之间以及外部与欧盟和第三国之间未来贸易关系的明确信息而受到阻碍。对于北爱尔兰的企业来说，爱尔兰边境问题的解决是一种特殊的、额外的不确定性——如何确保北爱尔兰被包括在英国的关税领土内，同时避免北爱尔兰和爱尔兰共和国之间的硬边界。这个几乎难以解决的问题最终导致《脱欧协议》（Withdrawal Agreement）纳入了《北爱尔兰议定书》（Northern Ireland Protocol），该协议实际上将欧盟和英国之间的边界移到了爱尔兰海（Irish Sea）。谈判中的不确定性，议定书将如何实施的不确定性，意味着NI和GB之间的贸易关系将受到影响，并将继续受到影响。海关检查和可能对一些从英国转到英国的货物征收的关税将产生直接影响，而不确定性将产生间接影响。在我们研究的第一部分中，我们将研究爱尔兰边境的不确定性，以及欧盟（因此是NI）和英国之间的关税和监管偏差对与英国贸易成本的潜在变化，如何影响北爱尔兰公司与英国的贸易关系。反过来，我们将研究这些变化是如何根据企业的基本特征（如生产率和外资所有权）而变化的。这项工作将分两个阶段进行，第一阶段侧重于2016年公投后不确定性对英国脱欧日期（2020年1月）的影响，第二阶段侧重于英国脱离欧盟后的影响。我们还将探讨第三国对英国的贸易程度，这些贸易可能通过NI转移，以避免更高的英国关税。在我们研究的第二部分中，我们将研究英国脱欧的不确定性如何通过公司运营的当地劳动力市场中工人（特别是欧盟国民）可用性的变化来影响NI和英国公司。潜在的英国脱欧后对非英国公民的工作和居住限制，以及英国脱欧带来的英镑贬值和其他负面宏观经济后果，可能会影响欧盟移民留在英国的决定，或者迁移到其他欧盟国家寻找更安全的生活和工作环境。欧盟移民可能对英国脱欧的不确定性特别敏感，因为他们平均受教育程度更高，更年轻，主要是出于与工作相关的原因（而不是家庭原因）而来到英国。英国劳动力构成的变化可能会对公司产生负面影响，因为从更广泛的人群中吸引工人可以提供多样化的技能，并可以抵御负面的经济冲击。相对于GB， NI可能会有不同的影响，部分原因是脱欧协议在欧盟和NI之间以及GB和NI之间建立了不同的经济关系，也因为NI中欧盟移民的份额大于GB的相应份额。因此，在第二部分中，我们将研究英国脱欧的不确定性如何通过移民影响企业。我们将首先研究英国脱欧的不确定性如何影响公司填补职位空缺的能力。然后，我们将研究英国脱欧如何影响公司运营的劳动力市场的构成，最后，评估这种劳动力构成变化对主要关注其生产力的公司的影响。

Following the decision of the UK to leave the European Union, UK firms and workers have faced a period of economic uncertainty. Even though the UK departed at the end of January 2020, uncertainty remains, and this is particularly so for businesses in Northern Ireland (NI). Our research is aimed at studying two particular aspects of Brexit uncertainty and their impact on Northern Ireland.Firms' production and exporting decisions might have been discouraged by the absence of clear information about future trading relations within the UK, between NI and Great Britain (GB), and externally with the EU and third countries. For businesses in NI a particular and additional form of uncertainty concerned the resolution of the Irish border issue - how to ensure that NI is included in the UK custom territory while avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This almost intractable issue finally led to the inclusion of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Withdrawal Agreement, which de facto moved the border between the EU and the UK to the Irish Sea. The uncertainty in the negotiations, the uncertainty about how the Protocol will be operationalised, means that trade relations between NI and GB will have been affected and will continue to be affected. There will be direct effects from customs checks and possibly tariffs imposed on some goods transiting from GB to NI, and indirect effects from the uncertainty. In the first part of our research we will examine how the uncertainty about the Irish border, in terms of the potential changes to the costs of trade with Great Britain from tariff and regulatory misalignment between the EU (and therefore NI) and GB, affected trade relations for firms based in Northern Ireland with Great Britain. In turn, we will examine how these changes varied depending on underlying firm characteristics such as productivity and foreign ownership. This will be undertaken in two phases - first focusing on the impact of uncertainty following the 2016 referendum up to the Brexit date (January 2020), and second, the impact following the UK's departure from the EU. We will also explore the extent of any trade by third countries to the UK, which may be diverted via NI, in order to avoid higher UK tariffs.In the second part of our research we will examine how Brexit uncertainty might have affected NI and UK firms through changes in the availability of workers, in particular EU nationals, in the local labour market where firms operate. The potential post-Brexit working and residence restrictions for non-UK citizens, as well as the sterling depreciation and other negative macroeconomic consequences of Brexit, might have affected the decision of EU migrants to remain in the UK, or to relocate to other EU countries in search of a more secure living and job environment. EU migrants might be particularly sensitive to Brexit uncertainty, as they are, on average, more educated, younger and located in the UK primarily for work related reasons (as opposed to family reasons). The changing composition of the UK labour force could impact negatively on firms, as drawing workers from a wider pool provides diverse skills and can offer resilience against negative economic shocks. There may be differential effects in NI relative to GB, partly because the Withdrawal Agreement establishes a different economic relationship between the EU and NI, and between GB and NI, and also because the share of EU migrants in NI is larger than the corresponding share in GB. In this second part, therefore, we will study how Brexit uncertainty has affected firms through migration. We will begin by examining how Brexit uncertainty affected firms' ability in filling vacancies. We will then examine how Brexit has affected the composition of the labour market in which firms operate, and finally, evaluate the impact of changes in such workforce composition on firms with a primary focus on their productivity.