A distinctive feature of India’s trade liberalization has been a significant rise in the magnitude of intra-industry trade (IIT). India’s total IIT is substantially large with high and upper-middle-income group countries and dominated by low vertical IIT. Particularly during the second phase of economic reforms, magnitude of India’s vertical IIT with high-income group of countries had increased; while there had been a marginal decline in horizontal IIT. This article identifies some of the determinants of India’s total IIT as well as vertical and horizontal IIT with her major trading partners from 1990 to 2014. The convergence in the level of economic development between India and her trading partner(s) positively influences total IIT and its two broad forms. Similarity in relative factor endowments and regional trade agreement through South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is found to promote horizontal IIT. Having a large market size, the distortionary impact of tariff has not been able to dampen the magnitude of India’s IIT. Relative depreciation of trading partner’s real exchange rate enhances India’s imports and inhibits the growth of total and vertical IIT. Geographical distance adversely affects all forms of IIT. JEL Codes: C23, F14

The last two decades have witnessed that countries across the world are guided by the rules and regulations of multilateral trading institutions (for example, World Trade organization tariffs, yet we find a rise in non-tariff barriers (NTBs). However, we still find dumping and few other trade strategies of the exporting countries as a major hindrance to free and fair trade. Such behaviour has led to "contingent protection" as a tool of new-protectionism.Among the contingent protection measures, anti-dumping (AD) has evolved as the most popular choice of strategy for the trading nations. The AD policy invokes a threat to the exporter and thereby can change its strategic behaviour. We describe the phenomenon of dumping through a price-leadership model and thereby compute the optimal level of antidumping duty that can offset dumping. Using a sequential game, we conclude that the credible threat of an AD duty restricts dumping and thereby leads to a win-win situation for both the foreign and domestic firms.JEL: C02, C72, D43, F13, L40

This paper mitigates the gap in the Indian context about the non-consideration of vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade (IIT) distinctly in testing empirical hypotheses about industry-level determinants of IIT. Our study indicates that failure to segregate vertical and horizontal IIT from the total IIT possibly leads to potential bias in econometric results. Drawing on annual multilateral trade data encompassing two and half decades of the liberalization period, we find India’s IIT outpaced the growth of inter-industry trade over the years and its contribution mainly came from six manufacturing industry groups whose export baskets had been loaded with low vertically differentiated goods. However, horizontal and high vertical IIT have gained some momentum since the end of the last decade. Given the fractional nature of our dependent variable, we initially estimate a (random effects) Tobit model followed by the Exponential Regression of Fractional Response model. The robust econometric findings show that product differentiation has a positive impact only on total IIT. Whereas vertical and horizontal IIT are promoted in industries with concentrated and competitive market structures, respectively. The prevalence of concentrated market structure indicates that (large) Indian firms sustain import competition by specializing in low vertically differentiated goods, as they efficiently adjust to resource reallocation.

Anti-dumping as a new protectionist trade policy has evolved as the popular strategy choice for the trading nations. Since the Uruguay Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) (1994), India has been a prominent user of it. This article attempts to explore the possible factors that might have triggered off 90 per cent cases of anti-dumping by five major Indian manufacturing industries over the period 1997-2011. We construct a balanced panel combining data on anti-dumping initiations from the 'Global Antidumping Database' with trade data from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S)-India and United Nations Comtrade database at the Indian Trade Classification (ITC) based on Harmonized System (HS) two-digit level. Having count data, the empirical model is estimated initially through a random-effects Poisson regression model followed by a negative binomial model. The number of anti-dumping initiations in India is dependent on the value of imports, the presence of a dominant industry lobby and the retaliatory behaviour by the affected domestic firms, among some others. In fact, we find that in determining the number of anti-dumping initiations the conventional economic and foreign affairs policies take a backseat! JEL: F13, F14, L40, C23

No abstract