Maurizio Zanardi

Trade Liberalization and Antidumping: Is There a Substitution Effect?

Many nations have undergone significant trade liberalization in the last twenty years even as they have increased their use of contingent protection measures. This raises the question of whether some of the trade liberalization efforts, at times accomplished through painful reforms, have been undone through a substitution from tariffs to nontariff barriers. Among the new forms of protection, antidumping is the most relevant, as its use has spread from few developed countries to a large set of developing countries that are now among the most intense users of this instrument. This paper uses a newly developed database to examine to what extent the use of antidumping in a large set of countries is systematically influenced by the reduction of applied sectoral tariffs. The data set includes information on 29 developing and 7 developed countries from 1991 through 2002. After controlling for time-varying sectoral information as well as macroeconomic conditions, we find evidence of a substitution effect only for heavy users of antidumping among developing countries. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in sectoral trade liberalization increases the probability of observing an antidumping initiation by 32 percent. There is no similar statistically significant result for other developing countries or developed countries. We also find robust evidence of retaliation and deflection effects as determinant of antidumping filings across all subsamples.

Does Antidumping Use Contribute to Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries

Some supporters of antidumping have argued that this procedure serves as a kind of “safety valve” for protectionist pressure. In this paper, we investigate whether there is empirical evidence that the use of antidumping actions has contributed to ongoing tariff reductions over the period 1988 to 2004 in a sample of 23 developing countries, some of which have become aggressive users of antidumping in recent years. The evidence is not supportive of the safety valve argument for these countries. Instead, evidence suggests that past use of antidumping may have led to less rather than more trade liberalization.

The Global Chilling Effects of Antidumping Proliferation

Advocates of antidumping (AD) laws downplay their effects by arguing that the trade flows that are subject to AD are small and their distortions negligible. This paper is the first to counter that notion by quantifying the worldwide effect of AD laws on aggregate trade flows. The recent proliferation of AD laws across countries provides us with a natural experiment to estimate the trade effects of adopting versus using AD laws; differences in the intensity of use among countries with older AD laws allow us to investigate reputation effects. For this purpose, we estimate worldwide trade flows using a gravity equation spanning 21 years (1980-2000) of annual observations. Our estimates confirm that AD effects are not small. Among other findings, new tough users have their aggregate imports depressed by 15.7 billion US

The First Review of European Union Antidumping Reviews

a year (or 6.7%) as a result of the AD measures they have imposed. For a traditional user like the United States, current AD measures depress annual imports by almost 20 billion US

Development Policy Lending, Conditionality, and Ownership: A Dynamic Agency Model Perspective

on top of the cumulative negative effect of reputation. For some countries, the dampening effects of AD laws on trade flows are found to nearly offset the gains from trade liberalization.

China - HP-SSST : last part of growing pains?

The literature on antidumping (AD) has documented various aspects of this protectionist tool. However, a peculiar feature of AD has not received much attention: these measures are endogenous to the behaviour of the exporting firms, which can adjust the dumping margin by changing their export price and ask the authority to amend the AD measures accordingly. The objective of this paper is to fill part of this gap in the literature by analysing the AD reviews conducted by the European Union for affirmative petitions initiated in 1980–2009. To this end, a novel data set of all such reviews has been assembled. Summary statistics reveal that more than a third of all petitions concluded with the imposition of AD measures are reviewed at least once before their expiration, and most reviews lead to lower AD duties (although, almost 20 per cent of the firms investigated through interim reviews see their duties increase). There are significant differences in the outcome of the reviews depending on the party requesting them (i.e. reviews lodged by European producers are less likely to lead to lower duties). These conclusions are confirmed by the econometric analysis, which also shows that Chinese firms see their duties reduced significantly less than those of firms from other countries.

China - HP-SSST: Last Part of Growing Pains?

Is the World Banks Development Policy Lending likely to enhance ownership and have greater effectiveness than structural adjustment? We specify a dynamic common agency model in which a government considering economic reform faces domestic opposition from interest groups. The dynamic specification, which is original in the context of policy reforms supported by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), is essential to allow the strength of special interest groups to arise endogenously during the reform process. We show that conditionality may alter the countrys political equilibrium and lead to higher social welfare. However, under certain circumstances which depend on country-specific circumstances, conditional assistance could lead to lower social welfare. Thus, for conditionality not to be inconsistent with ownership, its design must be appropriate to the country circumstances and directly affect the domestic political constraint.

Anti-dumping: What are the Numbers to Discuss at Doha?

In December 2012, Japan requested the establishment of a World Trade Organization (WTO) Panel regarding antidumping (AD) duties that China had imposed on high-performance stainless steel seamless tubes (HP-SSST). The European Union joined as a complainant in June 2013. To some degree, this dispute follows earlier ones involving China, as similar procedural and substantial issues were raised in previous cases. However, this was the first time that the WTO Panel rejected some important claims, only for those decisions to be reversed by the Appellate Body. Now that various rulings have clarified these legal issues, it remains to be seen if HP-SSST represents the last part of growing pains for Chinese authorities to learn about AD legal procedures.

The chilling trade effects of antidumping proliferation

In December 2012 Japan requested the establishment of a World Trade Organization (WTO) Panel regarding AD duties that China had imposed on high-performance stainless steel seamless tubes (HP-SSST). The European Union joined as a complainant in June 2013. To some degree, this dispute follows earlier ones involving China, as similar procedural and substantial issues were raised in previous cases. However, this is the first time that the WTO Panel rejected some important claims, only for those decisions to be reversed by the Appellate Body. Now that various rulings have clarified these legal issues, it remains to be seen if HP-SSST represents the last part of growing pains for Chinese authorities to learn about AD legal procedures.