Brexit and the Cost of Living: A Tale of Two Phases

We employ Synthetic Control Method techniques to estimate the causal effect of Brexit on the consumer price index (CPI) in the United Kingdom. We construct a counterfactual CPI index from a weighted pool of comparable economies and find that the price level of the United Kingdom rose approximately 7 percentage points more than its synthetic counterpart, between 2016Q2 and 2024Q4. This accounts for over a quarter of total inflation during the period. We attribute about 2 percentage points of this increase to the depreciation of the British pound after the Referendum and the remaining 5 percentage points to the change in trading relationships that ensued the 2021 Trade and Cooperation Agreement.