For the first time in 50 years the UK has ‘sovereignty’ over its trade policy. It must now decide, for example, how to configure its free trade agreements, its regulations for imported food and digital trade and its trade and climate policies. Simultaneously, income distribution has become highly sensitive in the UK, policy-making power is devolved over several UK entities and the world trading system is beset by a range of tensions such as digitisation and Chinese growth. How UK policies respond to this, and who is involved in making and scrutinising them, will shape economic outcomes for generations and affect all parts of society and all regions of the UK. The Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) will undertake innovative, interdisciplinary research at the frontier of knowledge, to help understand these challenges and opportunities and contribute to providing the UK with a modern trade policy. As well as being international in its approach, the CITP is designed to deliver impact through targeted communications and sustained engagement with a wide range of non-academic stakeholders. Above all, its research responds to the view that trade policy should be inclusive in outcomes for the people and regions of the UK, and in the formulation of policy by considering the views of all those affected. These five ‘I’s’ (innovative, interdisciplinary, international, impact, inclusive) are core to the work of the CITP. Trade involves exchange and agreement between sovereign states and is thus at the interface of economics and international law; these disciplines form the core of the CITP, together with political science, international relations and business.

Team

Coordinator: Bernard Hoekman

Research Fellows: Martina Ferracane, Rohit Tiku, Marco Sanfilippo