The Economic Impacts of Post-Brexit Trade Options

英国退出欧盟给政策制定者带来了前所未有的挑战、风险和机遇。在英国必须就其未来贸易政策做出的决定中，这些因素或许最为重要。现在看来，英国最终退出欧洲单一市场和关税同盟的可能性越来越大。这将使英国有能力签署自己的贸易协议，但无疑会给英国那些与欧盟贸易很重要的行业和地区带来许多问题。与第三国进一步自由化，也可能同时产生赢家和输家。我们提出了一项详细的研究计划，旨在了解英国的新贸易安排如何影响不同的行业、地区和工人。我们还建议综合现有的关于政策如何减轻与潜在的未来贸易冲击相关的调整负担的研究，我们将在我们的实证研究结果的背景下讨论这一点。我们的研究团队有能力做到这一点：汇集国际贸易经济学、劳动力市场和英国当前政策环境方面的专家。我们计划首先记录英国目前与欧盟和世界其他地区的贸易模式的确切性质。为此，我们将利用世界投入产出数据库（World Input-Output Database， WIOD）。这不仅提供了英国与不同国家之间贸易总额流动的信息，还提供了英国工业如何使用来自不同来源国的投入的信息。这将使我们能够详细描绘英国参与全球和欧洲价值链的情况。目前关于英国与其他国家贸易重要性的公开辩论，大多狭隘地集中在英国对不同国家的进出口份额上。然而，这忽略了进口投入品对某些行业可能具有的重要性。我们对英国工业的分析将明确说明这一点，从而提供贸易在英国经济中的作用的更完整的画面。然后，我们将利用公司的详细管理数据来描述在高度地理分解的情况下不同行业雇用的工人比例。将这些数据与世界贸易组织的表格相结合，我们将能够量化不同地区的工人可能受到贸易环境变化影响的程度，因为他们所从事的行业和地区向不同国家或贸易集团出口、使用来自不同国家或贸易集团的投入或与来自不同国家或贸易集团的进口竞争。为了理解更大的贸易冲击敞口在多大程度上实际上会对受影响的工人或地区产生更持久的经济影响，我们将研究与两次历史贸易冲击相关的劳动力市场影响。我们将研究的特别冲击是，过去二十年来，从中国进口的惊人增长和东欧国家的加入；我们还将探讨利用其他政策改革的可能性。这种分析将是向后看的。然而，我们这样做的目的是为了理解（类似的）贸易冲击可能产生的影响，如果英国在未来采取进一步措施实现相对低工资经济体的贸易自由化，可能会出现。最后，根据我们以往工作的结果，我们将审查可能的区域和劳动力市场政策，以减轻那些受贸易冲击不利影响的国家的调整负担。我们将在英国现有政策工具和措施的背景下讨论这些问题，包括英国脱欧后可能出现的欧盟区域发展基金的可能替代方案。这四个不同的研究方向将使我们能够描绘出英国脱欧后贸易选择的经济和社会后果的详细图景。

The UK's exit from the European Union presents policymakers with an unprecedented set of challenges, risks and opportunities. Perhaps nowhere are these more significant than in the decisions that the UK will have to make with regard to its future trade policy. It now appears increasingly likely that the UK will end up leaving both the European single market and the Customs Union. This will give the UK the ability to sign its own trade deals, but will undoubtedly pose many problems for those industries and regions of the UK for whom trade with the EU is important. Further steps towards liberalisation with third countries will also likely create both winners and losers.We propose a detailed programme of research with the aim of understanding how new trade arrangements for the UK might affect different industries, regions and workers. We also propose to synthesise existing research on how policy can ease the burden of adjustment associated with potential future trade shocks, which we will discuss in the context of our empirical findings. Our research team is well-placed to do this: drawing together experts on the economics of international trade, labour markets, and the UK's current policy environment.We plan to firstly document the exact nature of the UK's current trade patterns with the EU and the rest of the world. To do this we will draw on the World Input-Output Database (WIOD). This provides information not only on gross trade flows between the UK and different countries, but also on how inputs from different source countries are used by UK industries. This will enable us to paint a detailed picture of the UK's involvement in both global and European value chains. Much of the current public debate on the importance of UK trade with other countries focuses narrowly on the share of UK imports or exports to or from different countries. This however ignores the importance that imported inputs might have for some industries. Our analysis of UK industries will explicitly account for this and thus provide a more complete picture of the role of trade in the UK economy.We will then make use of detailed administrative data on firms to describe the proportions of workers employed in different industries at a high degree of geographic disaggregation. Using this data in conjunction with the WIOD tables, we will be able to quantify the extent to which workers in different regions are potentially exposed to changes in the trade environment because the industries and regions they work in export to, use inputs from, or compete with imports from various different countries or trade blocs. To understand the extent to which greater exposure to trade shocks actually leads to longer-lasting economic impacts on affected workers or regions, we will examine the labour market effects associated with two historic trade shocks. The particular shocks we will examine are the impressive growth of imports from China and the accession of Eastern European countries that occurred over the last two decades; we will also explore the possibility of using other policy reforms. This analysis will be backward-looking. However, we will do it with the aim of understanding the possible impacts of (analogous) trade shocks that might arise if the UK took further steps towards trade liberalisation with relatively low-wage economies in the future.Finally, drawing on our results from the previous exercises, we will undertake a review of possible regional and labour market policies aimed at easing the burden of adjustment for those adversely affected by trade shocks. We will discuss these in the context of the UK's existing policy instruments and measures, including possible replacements for the EU's regional development funds that may occur post-Brexit.Together these four different research strands will allow us to paint a detailed picture of the economic and social consequences of the UK's post-Brexit trade options.