Theoretical models and intuition suggest that the amount of non-traditional protection such as anti-dumping duties will increase as more traditional forms such as tariffs are lowered under multilateral trade agreements. This paper is the first empirical study of the role of tariff liberalisation in the spread of anti-dumping. Through both correlations and regression approaches we analyse the relationship between tariff concessions made during the Uruguay Round trade negotiations and the filing of anti-dumping petitions, with particular interest in whether multilateral trade reductions have spurred the recent growth in new users of anti-dumping policies. We find that, at least for developing economies, tariff reductions agreed to under the Uruguay Round not only increased the likelihood of a country using anti-dumping protection but also the total number of anti-dumping petitions filed by countries. Copyright 2007 The Authors Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd .

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This paper introduces a new data set and establishes a set of basic facts and patterns regarding the 'trade' that countries fight about under WTO dispute settlement. It characterizes the scope of products, as well as the levels of and changes to the trade values, market shares, volumes, and prices for those goods that eventually become subject to WTO litigation. The first result is striking heterogeneity in the level of market access at stake across disputes: e.g., 14 percent of cases over disputed import products feature bilateral trade that is less than $1 million per year, and another 15 percent feature bilateral trade that is more than $1 billion per year. Nevertheless, some strong patterns emerge from a more detailed examination of the data. Both high-and low-income complainants tend to suffer important losses in foreign market access in the products that ultimately become subject to dispute. Furthermore, while the respondent's imposition of an allegedly WTO-inconsistent policy is associated with reductions, on average, to trade values, volumes and exporter-received prices, there is some evidence of differences in the size of these changes across both the different types of policies under dispute and the potential exporter country litigants. Finally, these different types of policies under dispute can have dissimilar trade effects for the complainant relative to other (non-complainant) exporters of the disputed product, and this is likely to affect the litigation allegiance of third countries.

This is the first empirical study to examine Congressional support of a new law that distributes antidumping duties to protected firms. Because the law produces a transparent measure of how much each firm was rewarded for its efforts to secure the bill's passage, it provides researchers with a unique opportunity to study the link between the expected financial returns to firms, campaign contributions, and Congressional behaviour. Our results indicate that campaign contributions from beneficiaries increased the likelihood that lawmakers would sponsor the law, while contributions from the law's beneficiaries increased with the rewards they expected to receive. JEL classification: F13, D72Les rendements de la chasse aux rentes : contributions aux campagnesélectorales, subventions aux entreprises, et l'Amendement Byrd. Ceci est la premièreétude empirique examinant le support par le Congrès américain d'une nouvelle loi qui distribue les droits anti-dumping collectés aux entreprises protégées. Parce que la loi produit une mesure transparente de la récompense verséeà une entreprise pour ses efforts de lobbying afin de s'assurer que la loi est mise en vigueur, cela permet aux chercheurs d'étudier le lien entre les rendements financiers anticipés pour les entreprises, leurs contributions aux campagnesélectorales, et les actions du Congrès. Les résultats indiquent que les contributions aux campagneś electorales en provenance des bénéficiaires potentiels accroissent la probabilité que les législateurs vont supporter la loi, et que les contributions en provenance des bénéficiaires de la loi s'accroissentà proportion que la taille de la récompense anticipée s'accroît.

No abstract

Antitrust enforcement, Political economy,

This paper examines implications of the terms-of-trade theory for the determinants of outcomes arising under the enforcement provisions of international agreements. Like original trade agreement negotiations, formal trade dispute negotiations are modeled as potentially addressing the terms-of-trade externality problem that governments implement import protection above the globally-efficient level so as to shift some of the policy's costs onto trading partners. The approach first extends the Staiger (1999, 2011) model from trade agreement accession negotiations to the setting of enforcement negotiations, and the resulting theory guides the empirical assessment. The model is estimated using instrumental variables on trade volume outcomes from WTO disputes over 1995-2009. The evidence is consistent with theoretical predictions that larger import volume outcomes are associated with products that have smaller increases to foreign exporter-received prices (terms-of-trade losses) as a result of the dispute, larger pre-dispute import volumes, larger import demand elasticities, and smaller foreign export supply elasticities. Dispute settlement outcome differences are also explained by variation in institutionally-motivated measures of retaliation capacity and the severity of the free rider problem associated with foreign exporter concentration.

This paper examines implications of the terms-of-trade theory for the determinants of outcomes arising under the enforcement provisions of international agreements. Like original trade agreement negotiations, formal trade dispute negotiations are modeled as potentially addressing the terms-of-trade externality problem that governments implement import protection above the globally-efficient level so as to shift some of the policy's costs onto trading partners. The approach first extends the Staiger (1999, 2011) model from trade agreement accession negotiations to the setting of enforcement negotiations, and the resulting theory guides the empirical assessment. The model is estimated using instrumental variables on trade volume outcomes from WTO disputes over 1995-2009. The evidence is consistent with theoretical predictions that larger import volume outcomes are associated with products that have smaller increases to foreign exporter-received prices (terms-of-trade losses) as a result of the dispute, larger pre-dispute import volumes, larger import demand elasticities, and smaller foreign export supply elasticities. Dispute settlement outcome differences are also explained by variation in institutionally-motivated measures of retaliation capacity and the severity of the free rider problem associated with foreign exporter concentration.