Evolving Discretionary Practices of U.S. Antidumping Activity

Previous literature has discussed the procedural biases that exist in U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC) dumping margin calculations. This paper examines the evolution of discretionary practices and their role in the rapid increase in average USDOC dumping margins since 1980. Statistical analysis finds that USDOC discretionary practices have played the major role in rising dumping margins. Importantly, the evolving effect of discretionary practices is due not only to increasing use of these practices over time, but apparent changes in implementation of these practices that mean a higher increase in the dumping margin whenever they are applied. While legal changes due to the Uruguay Round are estimated to have reduced the baseline U.S. dumping margin by 20 percentage points, the increasingly punitive discretionary measures used by the USDOC almost completely compensated for this decrease by 2000.