What Triggers an Anti-Dumping Petition? Finding the Devil in the Detail

Despite a substantial literature on the anti-dumping process and its consequences, the circum-stances surrounding the initiation of an anti-dumping petition are not well documented. While this is likely to be a many faceted decision, we isolate a number of common features associated with petitions using detailed monthly U.S. trade data preceding a filing. This detail allows the very precise measurement of imports and their changes. Specifically, we are able to decompose imports along a number of margins including price, quantity, number of shipments and number of customs districts served. Surprisingly, we find very little evidence of import surges, or of large reductions of import prices (typically both are relatively flat). Instead, there are significant re-allocations of import market shares toward countries named in a petition. These increases are driven by both more shipments (rather than larger shipments) and an increase in geographical scope (more customs districts served). Measures of import quantities and extensive margins of trade are also important for predicting the countries that are filed against. After controlling for such effects we find that poor countries in general, and China in particular, are especially susceptible to being named in an anti-dumping case.