TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna
AU  - Homburg, Ines
AU  - James, Jonathan
AU  - Vujic, Suncica
        TI  - A Bad Break-up? Assessing the Effects of the 2016 Brexit Referendum on Migration
        PY  - 2023/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 16468
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp16468
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - Brexit referendum
KW  - international migration
KW  - European Union
KW  - uncertainty
KW  - anti-immigration
        ER  -