Wouter den Haan, Martin Ellison, Ethan Ilzetzki, Michael McMahon, Ricardo Reis, The CAGE Background Briefing Series No. 70, September 2017

This week’s UK referendum on EU membership is likely to have both short- and long-term effects on the country’s financial sector. This column, which reports the views of panel members in the monthly Centre for Macroeconomics survey, finds that almost all think that a vote for Brexit would lead to a significant disruption to financial markets and asset prices for several months, putting the Bank of England on high alert. On top of the risk of a financial crisis in the near future, an unusually strong majority agrees that there would be substantial negative long-term consequences. No panel member expects the overall consequences of a Brexit outcome to be beneficial for the UK economy – the first time since this survey began that one side of the argument is supported by none of the respondents.

Political Economy