Lessons from Article 50: why exit clauses should include penalties for the seceding state

If Article 50 enabled Brexit, does this mean that exit clauses make secessions from a political union more likely? Drawing on a new study, Martijn Huysmans and Christophe Crombez demonstrate that exit clauses which incorporate penalties for the seceding state can lead to more efficient exit decisions. They argue that further research into exit clauses might help enable efficient exits from political unions such as the EU and mitigate the problem of violent secessions from federations.