Trade costs of border controls in the Schengen area (Gabriel Felbermayr, Jasmin Gröschl, Thomas Steinwachs, VOX)

The refugee crisis has placed Europe’s Schengen Agreement under stress, with some calling for the reintroduction of identity checks and other border controls. This column presents new estimates of the potential costs of such controls. On average, the removal of controls at one border acts like the removal of a 0.7% tariff. The controls currently notified to the EU Commission could lower EU GDP by around €12.5 billion. The full demise of Schengen would be about three times as costly.

http://voxeu.org/article/trade-costs-border-controls-schengen-area