Brexit as a trigger? The impact of Brexit on migration - the causal effects, the specific mechanisms, the future trends and policy implications

Britain's referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) seemingly came as a shock to the public. "Voting Leave" can be interpreted as a trigger of society's dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and the EU's role in it, which resulted in emotional responses and action from the British and foreign nationals. In the months following the referendum, there was an observed increase in the number of citizenship and permanent residence applications from the EU citizens living in the United Kingdom (UK), and a change in migration patterns to and from the European Union. Motivated by the observed societal response, this project aims to establish (i) whether the Brexit referendum vote caused observed changes in migration patterns (or merely exacerbated a previous trend), (ii) what were the specific mechanisms behind it, (iii) which heterogenous effects can be identified, (iv) what was the role of the (social) media reporting as a transmission mechanism, and (v) what are the expected future migration trends and policy issues. Using an array of robust empirical (econometric) techniques, we will consider these changes for the UK as a whole and its regions and investigate whether the effects are temporary or long lasting. Further analysis of other influential factors such as labour market and socio-economic characteristics of the locality, ethnic and national diversity of the area will complement the main results. An extended period of analysis will allow us to (i) assess robustness of the main findings, (ii) evaluate the effect of earlier and subsequent "shock" events in the UK (e.g., the announcement of the referendum, triggering of Article 50, the COVID-19 effect, and actual UK exit from the EU in January 2021), which will be important for assessing the relative strength of the Brexit referendum effect and (iii) analyse the effect of the Brexit referendum vote as well as the complete Brexit process on migration policies and trends in the UK and in Europe. Proposed research will be of interest to academics in the fields of economics, sociology and social policy, demography, social geography, and political studies and will further contribute to it.

Keywords:MIGRATION, ECONOMETRIC MODELS, BREXIT, SOCIAL ECONOMICS

Disciplines:Labour and demographic economics, Econometric modelling, Welfare economics, Migration