Cameron’s information disaster in the referendum of 2016: an exit from Brexit?

Paul Welfens

International Economics and Economic Policy, 2016, vol. 13, issue 4, No 4, 539-548

Abstract: Abstract The BREXIT referendum of June 23, 2016, represents a rather surprising decision by the UK electorate and it is a historical result with implications for the UK, Europe and the world economy. It can be shown that a major information blunder by the Cameron government forms part of the explanation of the referendum result: The 16 page info brochure that government sent out to households did not contain a single key finding of the Treasury study on the economic effects of EU membership on the UK and the cost of BREXIT, respectively. While prior to the Scottish referendum of 2014 the Cameron government conveyed key economic insights to households, before the BREXIT vote the government did not give the Treasury’s finding that a 10 % output loss was to be expected as a long run BREXIT effect – had households obtained this information, the referendum would have been 52 % in favor of Remain. Thus there is a new, very convincing argument for a second referendum. Also, US perspectives are emphasized.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10368-016-0361-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Cameron's Information Disaster in the Referendum of 2016: An Exit from Brexit? (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:iecepo:v:13:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s10368-016-0361-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10368/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10368-016-0361-3

Access Statistics for this article

International Economics and Economic Policy is currently edited by Paul J.J. Welfens, Holger C. Wolf, Christian Pierdzioch and Christian Richter

More articles in International Economics and Economic Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().