[mike_hearn]

That specific statement has five citations and all of them are from 2016 or 2017, when Brexit hadn't happened and so they were merely speculating about possible future effects. So none of the citations supports the claim.

The citations also contradict the statement, "the referendum itself damaged the economy". Instead they admit the referendum's effects were better than predicted by which they mean there weren't any:

"It won't mean Armageddon, but the broad consensus of economists—whose predictions about the initial fallout were largely too pessimistic—is for a prolonged effect"

and

"Unlike the short-term effects of Brexit, which have been better than most had predicted"

Wikipedia is a hopelessly compromised source, you shouldn't rely on it for anything where a left wing activist might have strong opinions because they'll just straight up lie to you, unfortunately. Grokipedia's article is marginally better, but still makes the mistake of citing discredited analyses and making false claims based on them.

If you really want to know the truth about this you have to just go to the core data and see for yourself, because the space is full of claims made by people with a clear agenda.

[eqvinox]

> mistake of citing discredited analyses and making false claims based on them.

So, what should it cite?

[mike_hearn]

Economic data.

[eqvinox]

That's not an answer. Raw data is useless without interpretation. There's a myriad of other things affecting economic development, which need to be compensated for.

Or does your "raw data" have a column for "growth deficit due to Brexit" showing 0?

[mike_hearn]

Just compare the British economy with that of France, or its own prior trajectory. Very similar economies, neighbours, one stayed in and the other left. France establishes there was no unexpected growth surge Britain missed out on. Continuing on the prior trajectory establishes there was no direct negative impact from leaving. Put them together and there's your answer.

[eqvinox]

Surely, somebody else has done that and either posted about it or even submitted an academic paper in some economy journal. Do you have any links?

[Ed.: nevermind, https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexits-impact-on-the-uk-economy/ does what you described & it very much indicates an economic impact. You'll of course claim it's biased. Feel free to back that up with your own links to analysis.]

[mike_hearn]

There's no point submitting papers to academic journals given that the entire economics profession systematically lied about Brexit for years. Even Paul Krugman has publicly admitted, in writing in the New York Times, that the profession has been manipulating the public for ideological purposes:

> "What we’re hearing overwhelmingly from economists is the claim that [voting leave] will also have severe short-run adverse impacts. And that claim seems dubious. Or maybe more to the point, it’s a claim that doesn’t follow in any clear way from standard macroeconomics — but it’s being presented as if it does. And I worry that what we’re seeing is a case of motivated reasoning, which could end up damaging economists’ credibility."

Your link is an example of what Krugman was talking about. It's a press release about the NBER paper. It's not doing what I described, it uses an invalid methodology. It:

• Compares Britain to a synthetic country primarily based on the USA and Estonia, i.e. a country with a massive tech industry and a fast-growing ex-Soviet state still catching up from the damage caused by decades of communism. Notably missing: France and Germany. Then it assumes any underperformance in this correlation must be caused by Brexit. This assumption is invalid.

• Argues that if it hadn't left Britain would have had a sudden growth spurt out of nowhere that would have made it by far the fastest growing economy in the G7 outside of the US, leaving the rest of the EU in the dust. From where??

• Argues that if it had stayed British unemployment would be 4pp lower, but the current unemployment rate is 4% so they think staying in the EU would have reduced British unemployment literally to zero. Not a single unemployed person anywhere.

The paper can't even be described as biased, really. It's straightforward manipulation of the public. Anyone can "discover" any impact they like if they're allowed to make absurd assumptions about the counterfactual.

You can find other papers written outside of academia that are much more honest:

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Perspectives_5...

> Contrary to initial concerns, Brexit has not had a major detrimental effect on UK–EU trade. Trade data doesn’t support the Office for Budget Responsibility’s claims that Brexit has caused significant negative impacts on the UK economy.