In this Briefing Paper, Nicolò Tamberi analyses literature on international trade and economic growth and provides a quick guide for policymakers on trade and growth. Trade policy is not the only tool, or the main one, to address economic growth. However, it clearly has a role to play both directly and indirectly, because inappropriate trade policy can render other growth-focused policies less effective. Read Briefing Paper 77: TRADE AND GROWTH.

In this Briefing Paper, its authors consider the potential economic opportunities for the UK arising from the current CPTPP in comparison with the likelihood of further expansion in the future. They evaluate the UK’s economic opportunities with both current and potential CPTPP members, including trade in goods, trade in services, supply chain relationships and rules of origin. They also compare the CPTPP’s policies, with those of current and potential CPTPP members and explain why the UK Government should develop and articulate a strategic plan based on the political reality surrounding the CPTPP. Read Briefing Paper 75: JOINING THE CPTPP: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND POLITICAL DILEMMAS OF FUTURE EXPANSIONS FOR THE UK.

This Briefing Paper compares the preference utilisation rates (PURs) of both the UK and EU imports under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. PURs tell us the amount of eligible imports that come in tariff-free (that is, preference eligible in a free trade agreement, the extent to which preferences are being used) and allow for the evaluation of the effectiveness of a trade agreement. We find that the utilisation of preferential tariffs differs between the EU and the UK. EU exporters are utilising preferences more than UK exporters and UK exporters tend to use preferences more where the value of trade is larger. The Paper analyses the distribution of PURs across products and composition issues to identify reasons for low utilisation rates. Read Briefing Paper 72: PREFERENCE UTILISATION IN THE TCA: HOW ARE WE DOING?

This Briefing Paper aims to further understanding of the importance of trade in services for the UK economy. In particular, to shed light on the relationship between services and manufacturing trade, including an increasingly significant form of services trade known as Mode 5. We explore input-output data, firm-level data and the links between services and manufacturing in the context of the UK’s independent trade policy. The authors provide evidence that shows that the nature of how these services interact with goods trade and the policy or market access barriers and their implications need to be understood in much greater detail for policy purposes. Read Briefing Paper 66: Links between services and manufacturing trade in the UK: Mode 5 and beyond

Since the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) came into force, firms trading with the EU have faced new costs as they learn to trade under new regulations and comply with customs formalities that were otherwise not present. In this Briefing Paper, we provide an analysis of UK monthly trade data to assess how UK goods trade has performed in the period January-July 2021. We also expand our analysis on preference utilization rates (PURs), which depict the extent to which UK exports to the EU have benefited from the tariff-free treatment agreed in the TCA as well as examining the impact of the TCA on trade in services in the first two quarters of 2021. Our analysis shows that the introduction of the TCA reduced trade between the UK and the EU, but this is not homogenous across sectors, although, whilst exports took a knock in January and have since recovered, the impact on imports has persisted. Furthermore, despite the zero-tariff, zero-quota trade agreement of the TCA, firms end up paying tariffs to avoid the bureaucratic costs of claiming zero tariff. The foregone duty saving amounts to £534.6 million. Read Briefing Paper 63: POST-BREXIT: TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES (II)

After decades of close economic integration, the UK’s relationship with the EU, its biggest and closest trading partner, is now governed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). In this Briefing Paper we look at how UK merchandise trade has performed under the new regulations in the first quarter of 2021. We employ different methodologies to quantify a TCA-effect and find that trade with the EU was hit hard in January 2021 but may have rebounded in February and March 2021, with heterogenous effects across sectors. We also investigate the extent to which UK exports have benefited from tariff-free access in EU markets. Read Briefing Paper 57: POST-BREXIT: UK TRADE IN GOODS

This Briefing Paper considers how Brexit will impinge on the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries currently governed by the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiated by the EU. The authors explore whether the new Brexit-induced frictions on UK-EU trade will reduce the demand for ACP inputs – such as Cocoa products – into the goods that the UK and EU trade with each other. They conclude that the economic effects of even a ‘No Deal’ Brexit on ACP countries’ trade will be tiny in aggregate, because ACP countries supply only small amounts of inputs into the products involved in UK-EU trade. Read Briefing Paper 48: THE “BEARABLE LIGHTNESS” OF BREXIT ON THE ACP COUNTRIES’ TRADE: GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS AND RULES OF ORIGIN

The UK left the European Union on January 31, 2020. As the UK Government begins to develop the UK’s independent trade policy for the post-transition period, one part of the preparations is to establish the UK’s independent tariff schedule that will apply to goods imported into the UK. In February 2020, the Department for International Trade launched a public consultation concerning the UK’s applied Most Favoured Nation tariffs. This briefing paper outlines the proposals under consideration, discusses their potential implications, and provides our recommendations on the issues that we believe are important for the UK Government to consider when formulating the UK’s trade policy going forward. We explore the structure of the UK’s MFN tariff as a member of the EU and then analyse the potential impact of simplifying the tariff structure for firms, households, the environment and domestic policy objectives. Read Briefing Paper 39: RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE UK GOVERNMENT’S GLOBAL TARIFF PROPOSALS  

The United Kingdom has historically been one of the main recipients of inward foreign direct investment (FDI), attracting more greenfield investment than other large European economies. However, the Brexit vote has introduced considerable uncertainty over the future growth potential of the UK market, and the ease of cross-border flow of goods and services. Following a peak of inward investment activity in early 2015, the number of FDI project announcements for the UK and the UK’s share of the European market for FDI have been falling. In this Briefing Paper, we provide an analysis of inward FDI to the UK before and after the EU referendum, looking at the main foreign investors, which sectors they invest in and how trends in inward FDI have evolved over time. Our work suggests that following the Brexit vote, inward investment has been 16-20 per cent lower than it would have been if the UK had voted to remain a member of the EU, but that this impact differs depending on the sector. Read Briefing Paper 23 – NOT BACKING BRITAIN: FDI INFLOWS SINCE THE BREXIT REFERENDUM

The UK is one of the most services-oriented economies in the world, both in terms of production and exports.  Services inputs embodied in manufacturing exports constitute an important but under-appreciated kind of services exports, so-called mode 5 services trade.  This Briefing Paper provides the first estimates of mode 5 services trade disaggregated by UK region and industry, respectively, and over time.  UK manufacturing exports entailed over £70 billion worth of domestic services inputs in 2017, which play an integral role in the competitiveness of UK manufacturing exports.  Since these services are produced locally, changes in the trading environment for manufactures have direct implications for domestic employment in services sectors. Read Briefing Paper 22 – THE ENGAGEMENT OF UK REGIONS IN MODE 5 SERVICES EXPORTS