Bank of England uses Fame to measure Brexit’s impact on UK firms

A staff working paper published by the Bank of England (BoE) used data from Fame — our database of comprehensive information on companies in the UK and Ireland — to measure the impact of the Brexit referendum on UK firms.

Download the Bank of England report

BoE conducted surveys of UK businesses in the 3 years following the UK referendum which delivered a Brexit vote. The results included:

• an overall increase in uncertainty following the referendum
  • According to BoE’s Brexit Uncertainty Index, more than half of firms surveyed in 2019 reported Brexit as one of their top 3 sources of uncertainty
• an 11% reduction in investment
  • The fall in investment was gradual, despite predictions of a leave result having immediate effects to which the market would recover
• a drop in UK productivity of between 2%-5% in the same time frame
  • These inner-firm reductions in productivity were in part attributed to time spent by upper management to plan for Brexit
  • More productive, international firms saw more of a decline compared to less productive domestically centred ones

The research was primarily based on a random sample group of businesses the BoE calls the Decision Maker Panel (DMP). In assembling the DMP, BoE used Fame to identify 42,000 active businesses in the UK with 10+ employees. Of the 28,000 firms contacted, 7,200 responded. The BoE targeted CFOs or CEOs if the CFO was unavailable.

The BoE also used Fame to supplement and validate the DMP survey results, especially around ownership. This included:

• identifying whether the firm is owned in the EU — 8% of firms in the sampling were EU-owned
• measuring the impact on investment and employment relating to the EU
• analyzing logs of pre-referendum labour productivity
• identifying firm characteristics including:
  • sales
  • assets
  • firm age
  • number of employees

Fame also has data such as:

• financials and financial strength metrics
• adverse filings and news articles
• beneficial ownership information and corporate structures
• M&A deals and rumours
• industry descriptions, SIC codes and research
• accounts and documents as filed at Companies House and the Companies Registration Office in Ireland

You might be interested in

• Register for your free trial of Fame 
• Watch the video “Brexit and sanctions policy”
• Read how the Sunday Times used Fame to rank Britain’s top 100 private companies