IÂve been getting a fair bit of correspondence wondering why I havenÂt written about the negotiations for a Trans Pacific Partnership, which many of my correspondents and commenters regard as something both immense and sinister.
The answer is that IÂve been having a hard time figuring out why this deal is especially important.
The usual rhetoric  from supporters and opponents alike  stresses the size of the economies involved: hundreds of millions of people! 40 percent of global output! But that tells you nothing much. After all, the Iceland-China free trade agreement created a free trade zone with 1.36 billion people!!! But only 300,000 of those people live in Iceland, and nobody considers the agreement a big deal.
The big talk about TPP isnÂt that silly. But my starting point for things like this is that most conventional barriers to trade  tariffs, import quotas, and so on  are already quite low, so that itÂs hard to get big effects out of lowering them still further.
[...]
I suspect he's right.
Cheers,
Scott.