Most economists say Brexit will hurt the economy—but one disagrees

IT IS rare to find economists united, but on Brexit most are: leaving the European Union will reduce GDP, and quitting the single market and customs union (a hard Brexit) will make the loss bigger. Yet a group called Economists for Free Trade, led by Patrick Minford of Cardiff University, disagrees. Mr Minford forecasts that a hard Brexit followed by the unilateral abolition of all trade barriers and much EU regulation would boost Britain’s GDP by 6.8%, or £135bn ($175bn).

This was enough to persuade the BBC, perhaps mindful of criticism of anti-Brexit bias, to make Mr Minford’s claim its lead story and give him much airtime. His analysis contains a kernel of truth. Unilateral trade liberalisation is beneficial even if other countries do not reciprocate by cutting their own tariffs, as David Ricardo demonstrated 200 years ago. Yet as Monique Ebell of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a think-tank, points out, tariffs now matter less than non-tariff barriers, especially for services but also increasingly for goods. It is doing away with these that gives the single market its value. Mr Minford ignores them.