Digital Megaregulation Uncontested? TPP’s Model for the Global Digital Economy

Abstract

The United States championed the creation of new rules for the digital economy in TPP. Analyzing this effort as “digital megaregulation” foregrounds aspects that the conventional “digital trade” framing tends to conceal. On both accounts, TPP’s most consequential rules for the digital economy relate to questions of data governance. In this regard, TPP reflects the Silicon Valley Consensus of uninhibited data flows and permissive privacy regulation. The paper argues that the CPTPP parties endorsed the Silicon Valley Consensus due to a lack of alternatives and persistent misperceptions about the realities of the global digital economy, partly attributable to the dominant digital trade framing. It suggests a new approach for the inclusion of data governance provisions in future international trade agreements that offers more flexibility for innovative digital industrial policies and experimental data regulation.

Keywords: TPP, CPTPP, megaregulation, digital trade, electronic commerce, digital economy, data flows, data localization, data governance, Silicon Valley Consensus, GDPR

JEL Classification: F02, F13, F15, F42, F55, F63, L52, L81, O24, O30, K24