PIIE Bashes Tufts for Its Competing Trade Study

The pro-traders at Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) do not seem to like competition when it comes to free trade studies.

In a blog post, PIIE scholar Robert Lawrence defended his think tank's recent study on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), arguing that it is far superior than a Tufts University study on TPP that was just released but had very different findings.

Lawrence argues that the Tufts study, which estimates that TPP would reduce US income by 0.5%, reduce employment by almost half a million jobs, and increase income inequality, has faulty methodology.  Among other things, the PIIE study predicts that TPP would raise real incomes 0.5% by 2030.

Scholar Jared Bernstein, a former top economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBBP), defended the Tufts study at the National Press Club.

The PIIE study, entitled "The Economic Effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: New Estimates," was written by Peter Petri and Michael Plummer.  The Tufts study, entitled "Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement," was written by Jeronim Capaldo and Alex Izurieta, with Jomo Kwame Sundaram.

The Tufts study cites a couple of PIIE studies in its reference section, and likewise, the PIIE study cites a couple of Tufts studies, including the most recent one.

Lawrence has been a Nonresident Senior Fellow at PIIE since 2001, and is the Albert L. Williams Professor of Trade and Investment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Think Tank Watch is not taking sides, but we predict that both of the predictions in the study will be wrong.

Update:  Here is a piece in Salon entitled "TPP: Written By And For the Rich to Further Enrich Themselves at Our Expense," which blasts the PIIE report on TPP.

Atlantic Council & Fletcher School at Tufts Join Forces

A major US think tank has just joined forces with a major US university, in what could be a a new phase in how think tanks collaborate and interact with academia.

It was recently announced that the Atlantic Council and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University would enter into an exclusive partnership that will deeply link the organizations together.  Here is more from Atlantic Council:

The Atlantic Council and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University announced a new partnership today that will link the organizations across a full range of substantive issue areas in a number of forms including faculty/scholar exchanges, joint programs between centers, cohosted conferences and workshops, and multi-media outreach. This will be the only partnership of its kind for both institutions.

The partnership will officially launch at a joint Atlantic Council-Fletcher School event on July 14 at 1:30 p.m.

The Atlantic Council was ranked as the 16th best think tank in the United States by the 2015 University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.  Tufts, located in Medford, Massachusetts, was recently ranked as tied for the 27th best university in the US by US News & World Report.  In 2012, Foreign Policy ranked Tufts' Fletcher School as having the fifth best international relations master's program in the country.

Think Tank Watch has documented various think tank partnerships over the years, and they are not just with universities.  They can be with other think tanks, corporations, foreign governments, non-profits, news outlets/publications, and others.

Here is more on think tank collaboration with colleges/universities from On Think Tanks.

According to the 2015 University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, more than half of the think tanks in North America and Europe are university affiliated.

According to those rankings, the best university-affiliated think tanks are:

1. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
2. IDEAS/Public Policy Group, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
3. Center for International Development (CID), Harvard University
4. Hoover Institution, Stanford University
5. Earth Institute, Columbia University

Of course, there is the ongoing debate on whether think tanks or universities are more relevant.