Down in the Dumps

Richard Boltuck; Robert E. Litan

doi:10.5771/9780815708001

Summary

With the increasing integration of the major economies of the world, trade frictions have also increased. The Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, once scheduled for completion in December 1990, has been slowed over the issue of agricultural subsidies. The U.S.-Japanese trade relations have continued to be a source of friction between the two countries. At issue in all these disputes is whether the United States and other countries are playing "fairly" in the international trade arena.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) outlines a variety of rules designed to ensure fairness. The United States, like other GATT signatories, has enacted statutes designed, for the most part, to be consistent with the GATT requirements.

In this book, Richard Boltuck and Robert E. Litan, joined by a team of attorneys and economists with direct experience in "unfair trade" practice investigations, provide the first study of how one of the U.S. governmental agencies charged with implementing the U.S. laws governing unfair tradethe Department of Commercehas actually discharged its statutory mission. In particular, the book focuses on the antidumping and countervailing duty statutes, provisions allowing the United States to impose offsetting duties on imports that are sold here at prices below those charged by the producers in their home countries that benefit from subsidies provided by foreign governments to encourage exports. Although these provisions may have once been obscure parts of the U.S. trade laws, they have figured importantly in many recent celebrated trade disputes, including those involving the import of foreign-made semiconductors, steel, lumber, screen displays for laptop computers, word processors, and minivan vehicles.

All but one of the authors in the volume are highly critical of the procedures used by the Department of Commerce to calculate margins of dumping and export subsidization. Specifically, they find that a

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-1019-6
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-0800-1
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 350
Product type: Edited Book

1. Cover No access
2. Contents No access
1. Unfair Trade Defined and Its Prohibitions "Justified" No access
2. Findings No access
3. Where To from Here? No access
1. The Responsibility of the Department of Commerce No access
2. The Administration of the Law No access
3. Concluding Remarks No access
4. Appendix: Stages of Antidumping Proceedings No access
5. Comment by Noel Hemmendinger No access
6. Comment by Tom Emrich No access
1. The Law and the Inquisition No access
2. Best Information Available No access
3. Calculation of Fair Value No access
4. Sales below the Cost of Production No access
5. Constructed Value No access
6. The Exporter's Sales Price Cap No access
7. Nonmarket Economies No access
8. Duty Deposits and Unlimited Contingent Liability No access
9. Anticircumvention No access
10. Recommendations No access
11. Conclusion: Worse than "Dog Law" No access
12. Comment by Patrick Macrory No access
1. The Objectives of the Law No access
2. The Legal Framework No access
3. Domestic Subsidy Rates and Actual Competitive Benefits in Export Markets No access
4. Procedural Biases, or "Real Measurement Issues" No access
5. Nonmarket Economics and Economies in Transition No access
6. Administrative Biases No access
7. Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations No access
8. Appendix No access
9. Comment by Gary Horlick No access
10. Comment by Richard Diamond No access
1. Statistical Biases in Dumping Margin Calculations No access
2. Countervailing Duties No access
3. The Role of Uncertainty in Both CVD and Dumping Compliance No access
4. Conclusions and Policy Implications No access
5. Appendix No access
6. Comment by Brian Hindley No access
7. Comment by Robert M. Feinberg No access
1. Issues Relating to Antidumping Law No access
2. Issues Relating to Countervailing Duty Investigations No access
3. Initiating and Processing Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Investigations No access
4. Conclusion No access
5. Comment by Michael Coursey No access
6. Comment by Robert Herzstein No access
1. Congress "Takes Charge" of the Unfair Trade Laws No access
2. Pressures on the Department of Commerce No access
3. Empirical Analysis of Final Dumping Margins No access
4. Prospects for Reform No access
5. Comment by Pietro S. Nivola No access
6. Comment by I. M. Destler No access
1. The Antidumping Law and Its Function No access
2. Critique of Palmeter's Analysis No access
3. Issues Raised by Other Authors No access
4. Cost-Saving Measures No access
5. Suggested Reforms No access
6. Conclusion No access
General Discussion No access Pages 331 - 338
Contributors No access Pages 339 - 340
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3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
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12. L No access
13. M No access
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23. Y No access