One of President Obama’s top economic priorities during his final year in office is passage of the twelve-nation trade accord known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement or TPP. The future of the deal depends on the approval of a divided Congress. This would be the largest regional accord in history and would bind nations like Canada, Chile, Australia, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia.
There have been a number of studies in favor of the agreement, including one from the Peterson Institute for International Economics and another from the World Bank. But a recent study written by economists at Tufts University concludes that the pact would cost American jobs and exacerbate income inequality. As reported in the New York Times, the Tufts report projects that incomes in the U.S. would decline by a half percentage point compared with the expected change without the TPP.
By contrast, the Peterson Institute’s report, authored by economists from Brandeis and Johns Hopkins, projects that incomes would rise by half a percentage point. The Tufts paper also projects that the overall economies of the U.S. and Japan would contract slightly.
