Anti-dumping Initiations in Indian Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

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

Factors Affecting The Use Of WTO Fiscal Protection Instruments

“…Moore & Zanardi (2009), investigating whether anti-dumping investigations are being used by countries for escape clauses, has concluded that the safety valve argument is not supported and that anti-dumping measures serve to hamper trade liberalization. Zhou & Cuyvers (2009), Zeng (2011), Choi & Kim (2014), Bagchi et al (2015) and Li (2018), similarly macroeconomic variables were effective in anti-dumping investigations, Egger & Nelson (2011) has concluded that the antidumping investigations affected the world trade volume and world welfare. In the literature, it is found that anti-dumping investigations are carried out by retaliation between countries (Moore & Zanardi, 2001: 601-619).…”

“…For this reason, the first 17 countries using these instruments and the years 1995 (WTO foundation year) -2016 (date of study) were taken into consideration as a sample according to the WTO database. As a matter of fact, when the studies in the literature are examined, it is considered that the sample time interval (22 years) is sufficient (Knetter & Prusa, 2003;Aggarwal, 2004;Feinberg, 2005;Jallab et al, 2009;Zhou & Cuyvers, 2009;Choi & Kim, 2014;Bagchi et al, 2015). In Table 2, the status and source of variables used in the analysis have been seen.…”