Sanctuary markets and antidumping: an empirical analysis of US exporters

Antidumping proponents in the United States often argue that foreign firms use profits obtained behind home market barriers to "subsidize" allegedly "unfair" pricing abroad. This paper examines this "sanctuary market" hypothesis for antidumping petitions filed against U.S. manufacturing exporters. Econometric results suggest that there is little evidence that the U.S. manufacturing firms facing antidumping actions abroad are beneficiaries of a home market sanctuary during the 1994-2007 time period. This evidence suggests that current WTO disciplines are inadequate to protect firms from antidumping investigations that do not benefit from sanctuary markets.