07-02-2016, 03:05 AM
The U.K. has been running a sizeable current account deficit for some time now, thanks to an unusually low national savings rate. That means, on net, it has been supplying the rest of Europe with demand—something other European countries need. This isn’t likely to provide Britain the negotiating leverage the Brexiters claimed (the other European countries fear the precedent more than the loss of demand) but it will shape the economic fallout. The fall in the pound is a necessary part of the U.K.’s adjustment. It will spread the pain from a downturn in British demand to the rest of the euro area. Brexit uncertainty is thus a sizable negative shock to growth in Britian’s euro area trading partners not just to Britain itself: relative to the pre-Brexit referendum baseline, I would guess that Brexit uncertainty will knock a cumulative half a percentage point off euro area growth over the next two years.*