Daniel Laborde, left, author of a paper on the economic modeling of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, talks to Joe Glauber, the former Agriculture Department chief economist who recently joined the International Food Policy Research Institute. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

The proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’s potential benefits for agriculture are very difficult to model, economists agreed last week at an expert meeting organized by the Ecologic Institute, a German think tank, and the International Food Policy Research Institute.

David Laborde, an IFPRI senior research fellow, who has studied T-TIP, said that there are many factors that make it difficult to analyze the agreement.

“Market access and tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic —This we know how to model,” LaBorde said in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting last Friday.

But he added that most of he issues under discussion are non-tariff matters.

The impact of proposals such as the removals of barriers to hormone-fed beef and genetically modified seeds in Europe and the imposition of geographical indicators for certain products in the United States are harder to quantify, he said, because it is unclear whether European consumers would buy the products and how much more Americans might pay for a cheese that came from the area where it originated, rather than a similar product with a slightly different name, he said.

“Will the consumer pay more to get Parmesan [from Italy] rather than ‘kind of parmesan’?,” Laborde asked.

Perhaps equally important for economists, negotiators have not even decided what issues will be covered in the agreement. It’s unclear whether sugar will be included, Laborde noted, at a time when the European sugar industry has been liberalized and is becoming more internationally competitive.

“This is a very difficult agreement to model. It’s unlike standard tariff work,” said Joe Glauber, the former USDA chief economist who recently joined IFPRI.

Glauber, who has represented the United States in the World Trade Organization Doha Round negotiations, added that he has a hard time figuring out how to “multilateralize” any agreements that might be reached under T-TIP.

Elizabeth Dooley of the Ecologic Institute made a lengthy presentation on the similarities and differences between European and U.S. food regulations. It was pointed out that in Europe the European Commission sets the standards, but that the member states have the responsibility for enforcement and sometimes vary in how they enforce the regulations.

David Orden of IFPRI noted that one of the goals of the negotiations is harmonization of regulations, but said that “Unless you have a common government you are not going to find the exact same laws.”

Orden also noted that both the United States and the European Union are having “internal domestic battles” over some of the regulatory issues.

Max Gruenig of the Ecologic Institute noted that the regulatory issues such as the use of chlorine to wash chicken “often get extremely simplified” and used to create images for both the public and for policymakers.