We leverage the British Brexit referendum decision to leave the European Union, to demonstrate how changes in uncertainty about a country's future socio-political condition can impact migratory behaviour. Using official bilateral migration statistics, we report an excess increase in migration from the UK to the EU of approximately 16% post-referendum, compared to movements between the remaining EU countries over the same period. In addition, we analyse in-depth interviews conducted with UK migrants in Germany to show that uncertainty about future bilateral relations, a negative economic outlook, and perceptions of negative social consequences in the UK have been by far the most dominant drivers of migration in the post-referendum period. We further corroborate the effect of changes in uncertainty on migration-related behaviour with exceptional spikes in naturalisations, indicating that UK citizens living in other EU member states are actively taking decisions to mitigate the negative impact that Brexit is having on their livelihoods.

中文翻译：

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英国脱欧、不确定性和移民决定

我们利用英国脱欧公投决定离开欧盟的机会，来展示一个国家未来社会政治状况的不确定性变化如何影响移民行为。根据官方双边移民统计数据，我们报告称，公投后，与其他欧盟国家之间的流动相比，公投后从英国流向欧盟的移民数量超额增长了约 16%。此外，我们分析了对在德国的英国移民进行的深入访谈，结果表明，未来双边关系的不确定性、负面的经济前景以及对英国负面社会后果的看法是迄今为止德国移民的最主要驱动因素。公投后时期。