Political considerations in the protectionism against the transition economies

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of the social and political factors as the determinants of antidumping duties against the transition economies. The empirical evidence shows that protectionist pressures tend to be strengthened against them with low labor standards, although protectionist tendencies with respect to social dumping are not so apparent in actual impositions of antidumping duties. There is a weak evidence that the different degrees of democraticness influenced the protectionism against the transition economies during the late 1990s, while such an effect is not found during the period of 2002-2006, as the concerned countries passed the initial stage of transition.