Chad P. Bown
Department of Economics &
International Business School
Brandeis University

Since the 1995 inception of the World Trade Organization (WTO), developing countries have become some of the most frequent users of the WTO-sanctioned antidumping trade policy instrument. However, little is known about the pattern of actual industrial use of antidumping in developing countries. This paper exploits newly available data to examine nine of the major “new user” developing countries, matching data on production in 28 different 3-digit ISIC industries to data on antidumping investigations, outcomes and imports at the 6-digit Harmonized System product level. We use a cross-country panel of industry-level data to estimate determinants of antidumping protection. We present evidence consistent with theory that developing country industries that seek and receive antidumping import protection are responding to macroeconomic shocks, exhibit characteristics consistent with endogenous trade policy formation, and face some changing market conditions consistent with requirements of the WTO Antidumping Agreement. On average, a one standard deviation change in the key determinants affects the probability of an industry-level antidumping investigation by 50%. However, the evidence also suggests substantial heterogeneity in determinants of antidumping use across developing countries, which highlights the flexibility of this policy as a protectionist tool responsive to many different types of political-economic shocks. Nevertheless, this also indicates that WTO rules may have imposed relatively little discipline on national use of the policy during this time period.