Publication: Antidumping as Safeguard Policy
Date
2001-12
ISSN
Published
2001-12
Author(s)
Finger, J. Michael
Ng, Francis
Wangchuk, Sonam
Abstract
Antidumping is by far the most prevalent
instrument applied by countries to impose new import
restrictions. In the 1980s antidumping was used mainly by a
handful of industrial countries. More recently developing
countries have used it increasingly often. Since the World
Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements went into effect in
1995, developing countries have initiated 559 antidumping
cases, developed countries 463 (through June 2000). Per
dollar of imports ten developing countries have initiated at
least five times as many antidumping cases as the United
States. Even so, the WTO community continues to take up
antidumping as if it were a specialized instrument. In
reality, present WTO rules allow it to be applied in any
instance of politically troubling imports. The authors argue
that, as a "pressure valve" to help maintain an
open trade policy, antidumping has serious weaknesses: Its
technical strictures do not distinguish between instances
that advance rather than harm the national economic
interest. And its politics of branding foreigners as unfair
strengthens rather than mutes pressures against liberalization.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Finger, J. Michael; Ng, Francis; Wangchuk, Sonam. 2001. Antidumping as Safeguard Policy. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2730. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19405 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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