On the causes of Brexit

Abstract

We analyse the voting pattern in the June 23 rd referendum on the continued participation of the United Kingdom in the European Union and evaluate the reasons for the results. We find that output, education and the share of older people at the regional level can explain attitudes towards immigrants and the European Union. Thus, regions where GDP per capita is low, a high proportion of people has low education, a high proportion is over the age of 65 and there is strong net immigration are more likely to be apprehensive of the European Union, be suspicious of immigrants and not want them as neighbours and, most importantly, to vote for Brexit. The fear of immigration does not seem to be fully justified in terms of the literature on the labour market effects of immigrants in the UK. Using the British Election Study we find similar results. Thus negative attitudes towards immigration and EU enlargement are correlated with voting for Brexit using data on individuals.

Local Economic Effects of Brexit

“…Local economic conditions were an important factor in determining voting patterns (Arnorsson and Zoega, 2016;Becker et al 2016;Goodwin and Heath, 2016;Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2016;Zoega, 2016). Regions with larger shares of lower-skilled or manufacturing employment, a greater historical role of manufacturing, and higher unemployment were all more likely to vote for Brexit (Becker et al, 2016).…”

Policy uncertainty and international financial markets: the case of Brexit

“…Looking at the response of the sterling exchange to poll numbers accordingly find that investors appear to view Brexit as a negative event (Arnorsson and Zoega, 2016).…”

The Meaningful Votes: Voting on Brexit in the British House of Commons

“…Second, our analysis contributes to the fast emerging literature on the causes of the Brexit referendum result itself. 1 Becker et al (2017), Arnorsson and Zoega (2018), Zhang (2018) and Fidrmuc et al (2019) use aggregate vote share results at the local authority, constituency or ward level to study the socio-economic correlates of the Leave vote share. Four groups of correlates were important.…”

“…The third group of correlates relates to immigration, which played an important role for the rhetoric of the referendum campaign. Areas with high net immigration were more likely to vote Leave (Arnorsson and Zoega 2018). The final group of correlates relates to the direct benefits an area has received over the years from the EU's Cohesion Fund.…”