Trans-Pacific Partnership: TPP: An Assessment (Policy Analyses in International Economics).

• Author: Vessels, Katherine E.
• Position: Book review

Cimino-Isaacs, Cathleen and Jeffrey J. Schott, eds. Trans-Pacific Partnership: TPP: An Assessment (Policy Analyses in International Economics). The Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2016. 277 pages. Paperback, $23.95.

In 2008, the United States joined Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in negotiations to create a trade agreement among the twelve nations that would come to be known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership ("TPP"). Since the inception of those negotiations, the TPP, its potential impacts, and its negotiation process have been thoroughly evaluated. Trans-Pacific Partnership: An Assessment is a synthesis of the research evidence that brings together high-quality studies on the TPP's expected impacts to come to more fully supported conclusions about the benefits of the TPP.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: An Assessment's systematic review creates a datadriven analysis of the benefits of TPP. Each chapter is an essay written by experts who have conducted studies and collected data on certain fields affected by the TPP. Each essay presents that data and its analysis in a manner that clarifies a certain chapter or aspect of the TPP. The editors' selected essays are by no means objective, but each author supports his or her assessment with not only their own research but also with the data, findings, and conclusions from others. Most of the selected essays recognize that some of the analysis remains inconclusive and offer methods to address potential negative impacts arising from the TPP's implementation.

Cathleen Cimino-Isaacs and Jeffrey J. Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics edited the book and authored some of the chapters. The editors begin the book with an essay in which Peter A. Petri, the Carl J. Shapiro Professor of International Finance at Brandeis University and a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center, teams up with Michael G. Plummer, Director of the School of Advanced International Studies Europe and the Eni Professor of International Economics at Johns Hopkins University, to present the estimated economic effects of the TPP on all of the TPP member nations. The roster of contributing authors remains impressive throughout the book and includes Robert Z. Lawrence, the Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Caroline Freund, Senior...