%0 Report
        %A Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna
%A Homburg, Ines
%A James, Jonathan
%A Vujic, Suncica
        %T A Bad Break-up? Assessing the Effects of the 2016 Brexit Referendum on Migration
        %D 2023
        %8 2023 Sep
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 16468
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp16468
        %X By voting to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) set off a long period of uncertainty and signalled its support for the Leave campaigns, which centred around restricting migration. This paper researches how this decision affected EU-UK migration patterns. We exploit the Brexit referendum as a natural experiment and employ a (synthetic) difference-in-differences estimator to compare EU migration (treated) to non-EU migration (untreated) in the UK. We find a significant decrease in the inflow of EU migrants, although the reduction seems too small to have any impact on the migrant stock. We further find a significant persistent rise in British citizenship applications and grants. Our results reveal that the referendum made the UK a less attractive destination and that the EU migrants already in the UK were encouraged to obtain British citizenship. The Brexit-induced policy uncertainty was the key driver affecting migrants' decision-making.
        %K Brexit referendum
%K international migration
%K European Union
%K uncertainty
%K anti-immigration