TL;DR: “Brexit has therefore not produced an economic crisis in the conventional sense. The UK economy has continued to grow, unemployment remains relatively low, and many firms have adapted. But adaptation is not the same as absence of cost. The more relevant counterfactual is not whether the economy is still functioning, but how much better it might have performed; on that question, the evidence is increasingly settled.”
It’s kind of a strange article… UIACE are widely regarded as being impartial and that does seem to be reflected in the text, but this conclusion is still kind of vague. Seems to boil down to “It hasn’t been too bad but still might be”. Feels like kind of a pointless take. Brexiteers will probably latch onto the first half " Brexit has therefore not produced an economic crisis in the conventional sense. The UK economy has continued to grow, unemployment remains relatively low, and many firms have adapted " while remainers will point to the second half " adaptation is not the same as absence of cost. The more relevant counterfactual is not whether the economy is still functioning, but how much better it might have performed; on that question, the evidence is increasingly settled ". What it doesn’t offer is any insight as to what the middle ground might be in terms of reconciliation and what a more nuanced future might look like.
Any of you read the article that OpenAI wrote? Here’s a quote: “The operation sought to exploit and amplify existing public concerns about energy prices and local impacts of data center development, but we found no evidence of meaningful breakout beyond its own activity .” So it’s less “China is making you hate data centers” and more “they tried but it didn’t work”.