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Brexit and the UK Automotive Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Bailey  and
Lisa De Propris
David Bailey*
Affiliation:
Aston Business School
Lisa De Propris
Affiliation:
Birmingham Business School
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The UK's automotive industry has been one of the ‘star performers’ of the UK economy in recent years – unlike most other manufacturing sectors. Output has increased by over 60 per cent since 2010 and there has been over £8 billion worth of investment in the industry in the past five years. The industry supports some 800,000 jobs in the UK. It is seen as having benefitted from EU membership. So what might Brexit mean for the UK automotive sector, and its workers? This paper considers short-run impacts, before turning to the impact of uncertainty on foreign direct investment inflows and then the nature of a possible trading relationship. Some brief reflections on policy implications round off the paper.

Keywords

Brexitautomotivetradeindustrial policyEuropean Union.F13F23L23L52L62
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 242 , November 2017 , pp. R51 - R59
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

The writing of this paper has been supported by the EU Horizon 2020 project MAKERS – Smart Manufacturing for EU Growth and Prosperity, a project funded by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange Programme, under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, grant agreement number 691192. It builds on and updates Bailey and De Propris (2017).

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