Behind the support for Brexit and Trump: Economic resentment

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United Kingdom's stunning vote to leave the European Union was driven by much of the same sentiment that fueled Donald Trump's insurgent march toward the Republican presidential nod: A rejection of economic globalization and the elites who favor it by those who feel left behind.

Many economists warn that the British vote to leave the EU, dubbed "Brexit," could cripple that nation's economy — just as many say Trump's ideas would stifle U.S. growth or even trigger another recession.

The Brexit vote and Trump's widespread support reflect a sweeping rejection of expert opinion in advanced countries.

"At some level it is a cry of frustration but one that could end up hurting an already economically harmed part of the population," says Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University and former official at the International Monetary Fund.

David Blanchflower, an economics professor at Dartmouth University and a former policymaker at the Bank of England, says average weekly pay in the U.K., adjusted for inflation, remains 7 percent below its most recent peak, reached in 2008.

Colin Montgomerie, 54, who lives in Maybole, Scotland, and voted to leave the EU, says stagnant pay was a driving factor for many voters like him.

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Brexit voters were "startlingly" similar to Trump's coalition:

Listening to British television coverage of the vote, "I could have shut my eyes and altered the accents, and I would have thought they were talking about the American election," he said.

The "Leave" supporters argued that Great Britain's economy would improve once it threw off excess regulation imposed by Europe and was no longer yoked to continental Europe's moribund growth.