The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) presents strong potential to mold regional trade and investment patterns well into the future and to influence the direction of global economic cooperation at a challenging time. This paper evaluates the RCEP and estimates its potential...

Bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives in Asia have been growing in importance over the last five years.These accords span the real and financial sectors; rather than following the more typical pattern of "trade first,money later", recent policy initiatives involve the simultaneous...

In November 2002, it was proposed at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Heads of Government meeting in Phnom Penh that the region should consider the possibility of creating an "ASEAN Economic Community" (AEC) by 2020. The name is evocative, for an "Economic Community"...

This Working Paper estimates the effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) using a comprehensive, quantitative trade model, updating results reported in Petri, Plummer, and Zhai (2012) with recent data and information from the agreement. The new estimates suggest that the TPP will increase...

In November 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed itself to the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), in which goods, services, capital, and skilled labor would flow freely by the year 2020, or possibly even 2015. Hence, the AEC will guide the ASEAN...

Many economists tend to be skeptical of the merits of Free-Trade Areas (FTAs) due to their second-best nature, while others support them under certain conditions, particularly as they allow for a more comprehensive treatment of trade- and investment-related issues than is currently possible...