The good, the bad and the ugly: Chinese imports, EU anti-dumping measures and firm performance

Despite growing international trade flows, the last decades have been characterized by an increasing recurrence to protectionist measures, especially through the adoption of anti-dumping (AD) measures. Dumping strategies might reduce international competition although the literature has frequently questioned to what extent AD measures have to do with unfair trade. Increasing concerns have been raised about the possible protectionist abuse of this trade defence instrument, especially in developed countries which may use AD actions to defend their mature industries from the price-competition of emerging economies. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the European Union (EU) AD measures against Chinese imports, looking at the contrasting effect on the performance of Chinese exporters, European producers and European importers. Our results suggest that EU AD measures successfully reduced the number of Chinese exporters although this results in an increase in the productivity of those remaining. The same EU AD measures have a mixed impact on the performance of European firms, bringing temporary benefits for domestic producers, but negatively affecting importers, with a perverse long-run effect of a reduced productivity gap between Chinese exporters and European firms.