"Studies of TPP illustrate ... strengths and weaknesses. The most influential, by Peter Petri, Michael Plummer and Fan Zhai, for the East-West Centre, a research institute, forecasts that the deal would raise the GDP of the 12 signatories by $285 billion, or 0.9%, by 2025. It is their numbers that America's government cites when it says TPP will make the country $77 billion richer. Their model tries to avoid some of the common failings of CGE. Their assumptions are transparent, include a range of scenarios and are often conservative--for example, they expect only slow and partial implementation. That makes the results more credible."

The Economist
May 30, 2015 print edition

The study cited appears as Chapter 6 in New Directions in Asia-Pacific Economic Integration.

In 2014, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum celebrates its 25th anniversary in a vastly changed region and world. In Bogor, Indonesia, 20 years earlier, APEC committed to achieve free trade and investment in the region by 2020. In Beijing in 2014, China will again make regional economic integration an APEC priority. These papers draw on two conferences organized by the China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation and are published jointly with the United States Asia Pacific Council.

As one contributor put it, APEC earns an "A" for its vision of regional economic integration, but its grade on execution remains "incomplete." Yet pathways to the Bogor Goals are coming into focus. This book examines the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations from various perspectives, and considers possibilities for their consolidation into a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). It also explores regional connectivity and the proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Experts from nearly every APEC economy explore the benefits and challenges of regional economic integration. Their perspectives differ, but also reveal striking common ground. They offer practical recommendations for the Asian and trans-Pacific pathways--for ensuring their compatibility, and for promoting their convergence into an FTAAP.

This book will be an invaluable reference for readers interested in the prospects for Asia-Pacific economic integration. It testifies to a little-celebrated, but invaluable, achievement of APEC: the rise of a sophisticated international community of experts who understand the region and collaboratively promote its long-term interests.

EDITORS
TANG Guoqiang is Chair of the China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation. Previously, he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China for 38 years.

Peter A. PETRI is the Carl J. Shapiro Professor of International Finance at the Brandeis International Business School, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, and a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC.

Sponsored by the China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (CNCPEC) and the United States Asia Pacific Council (USAPC)