Terry Barker - 'Trade and Development: Why a 'No Deal' Brexit Would be an Economic Catastrophe'

Date: Wednesday 6 March 2019
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Terry Barker
Talk Title: 'Trade and Development: Why a 'No Deal' Brexit Would be an Economic Catastrophe'
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine's College

The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

 An audio recording of the presentation is here:

Speaker:
Terry Barker is Professor and Founder of the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics and a Senior Department Fellow in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He holds an Honorary Chair in the School of Environmental Sciences in the University of East Anglia, UK. He has written on various aspects of trade, including the variety hypothesis for international trade, international competitiveness, effective protection, the import content of UK final demand categories, and foreign trade in multi-sectoral models. See: https://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pba547.htm

Talk Overview:
Trade is a feature of economic growth and development over location and time. The import function is a critical component in Keynesian theory for open economies. Banking and insurance historically developed in response to the gains and risks from intercity and international trade. Underlying the UK's trade and development are the networks of institutions, known as the Single European Market, and many regulations and instruments at the EU level. A no-deal Brexit would inflict major damage on the UK's trade and development and threatens the effectiveness and efficiency of the UK's environment and energy policies. The seminar will address why the no-deal threat is so serious in terms of the fundamental question of how markets evolve to generate public and private goods and protect the environment. A no-deal damages the process of British specialisation and regulation of production, weakening innovation and raising polluting emissions. A lower exchange rate to offset weaker exporting will shift the economy away from high-value quality products and jobs towards more price-competitive goods and services. It will increase inequalities by raising food and energy prices. It will further concentrate activity in the south-east and lead to unemployment in areas relying on manufacturing for export.