Northern Ireland and the economic consequences of Brexit revisited: the “best of both worlds” or a lost decade?

Recent quantitative work has suggested that Brexit's macroeconomic damage is traceable to its effects on uncertainty, particularly as it reduces investment. Brexit has, in addition, had particular place-based economic consequences in Northern Ireland (NI). This article applies a variety of concepts to try and disentangle why NI has experienced these place-based effects. The application of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) – as it relates to supply chains – for instance, provides some useful insights regarding the “border in the Irish Sea”. In the regional context, Brexit has compounded pre-existing institutional-economic weaknesses: uncertainty associated with the legacy of violence and underperformance in the operation of devolution have contributed to NI's inadequate investment, innovation and productivity. The place-based economic analysis suggests that policy approaches should focus on the fact that NI shares UK-wide weaknesses: in addition, the region features that are magnified versions of UK problems as well as problems unique to it.