U.S. trade remedy law and agriculture: trade diversion and investigation effects

Abstract .  We study U.S. agricultural antidumping and countervailing duty cases from 1980 to 2005, and gauge the effectiveness of trade remedy law as a form of protection. The purpose is to measure the resulting investigation and trade diversion effects. Previous research on trade in manufactured products has shown that the domestic protection offered by AD and CV duties is largely offset by trade diversion. In contrast, we find that for agriculture, trade diversion is relatively unimportant. So AD and CVD cases are very effective forms of protection for U.S. agriculture.