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有哪位好心人能帮忙把这篇论文给翻译一下嘛，实在是太难了，我是没有那个本事啊，谢谢了啊!US Trade Remedies and the Adjustment Process
2.4 Antidumping and Countervailing Duties
Safeguards and TAA assist firms and workers adversely affected by imports or, in the case of TAA, the relocation abroad of US plants, regardless of whether the tradeimpact is associated with “unfair” behavior of foreign competitors. The provisions discussed above mostly tend to offset rather than reinforce the market pressure for resources to leave a sector that experiences declining comparative advantage. However, the statutory limit on the duration of a safeguard and TAA’s provisions on retraining, relocation, job search, and wage insurance can be seen as implicit or explicit efforts to promote adjustment.
In contrast, antidumping and countervailing duty laws begin from the premise that the
pressure to adjust is itself unfair, i.e., that competing goods are being sold in the US market at “less than fair value.” Hence, the intent of these laws is to eliminate the need for US firms to adjust. In practice, the frequent use of antidumping by the steel industry in particular suggests that these laws strengthen the ability of industries to postpone adjustment indefinitely. The link of antidumping activity to exchange-rate appreciation and cyclical downswings (Knetter and Prusa 2003, Irwin 2004) may imply their use also as a means to counter reversible declines in profitability and thus retain resources in sectors where the average return would not otherwise be adequate to compensate for the volatility of profits. In a competitive industry with high fixed costs and substantial volatility in demand, one would expect to see all firms selling at marginal cost, thus making losses (price below full average cost) during business downturns but earning
above-average profits during upturns; average profitability over time should be sufficient to compensate for year-to-year volatility. However, this behavior pattern on the part of foreign firms exporting to the United States would trigger dumping complaints. Thus, one effect of antidumping is to shift more of the adjustment burden in cyclical industries to foreign suppliers.
Notwithstanding the intended role of antidumping as a means of preventing damage to the US economy due to unfair practices of foreign firms, most international economists view the law as offering domestic firms an easy alternative to adjustment. The ease of obtaining protection through this route is attributable in part to a shift in 1980 of the responsibility of determining whether imports were sold at “less than fair value” from the free-trade-oriented Treasury Department to the Department of Commerce. Irwin (2004) shows that Commerce was far more likely to find evidence of dumping, a necessary condition for antidumping action to protect the domestic industry. A second reason for the relative ease of obtaining sector-specific protection through this route is that Commerce can choose among four calculation methods, including “facts available” method based on the petitioners’ data that accounts for affirmative decisions with an average dumping margin of nearly 96 per cent (Irwin 2002). Moreover, antidumping enforcement appears to target exporting nations that have recently gained competitiveness in the relevant industry, and especially smaller countries lacking the capacity to retaliate in kind (Blonigen and Bown 2003).
Given the intent of antidumping and countervailing duties to neutralize the impact on domestic firms of “unfair” import pricing, it is not surprising that the US Tariff Act of 1930 makes no explicit mention of adjustment in the import-competing sector. However, the provisions regarding “sunset reviews” implicitly address industry adjustment. Five years after an AD/CVD has been imposed, the DOC and the ITC must “conduct a review to determine […] whether revocation of the countervailing or antidumping duty order or termination of the [suspension agreement]… would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of dumping or a countervailable subsidy (as the case may be) and of material injury.” If the affected industry does make a successful “adjustment” by becoming competitive and thus eliminates risk of future material injury from foreign competition, the industry will lose its protection through the removal of duties. This provision appears to further weaken the already weak incentives for speedy adjustment by offering continued protection only for industries that are still endangered by imports.
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2.5 WTO Rules on Subsidies
The WTO limits members’ use of subsidies and also actions that members can take in response to subsidies used by other member countries. Subsidies specifically designed to distort international trade are prohibited (WTO website).15 Other subsidies are permitted unless a complaining country can show that it is adversely affected. Specifically, subsidies designed to ease adjustment by facilitating movement of productive factors out of a US industry that has lost comparative advantage would thus be permitted as long as they did not (a) hurt a domestic industry in an importing country, (b) hurt exporters in another country trying to compete in the US market, or (c) hurt rival exporters from another country in competition in a third market.
Given these grounds for a complaint, subsidies designed to restore the comparative advantage of a declining US industry would run a greater chance of being challenged by another WTO member than subsidies designed to encourage exit. If the WTO Dispute Settlement Body agrees that the US subsidies have adverse effects on another member, the US would have to withdraw its subsidies or otherwise eliminate the adverse effects. In the case of subsidies that hurt domestic producers in another country, that country could impose a countervailing duty.
2.6 Section 301
While the provisions discussed above are concerned mainly with situations in which a US firm is injured by competing imports, Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 addresses foreign practices that unfairly exclude US products from export markets. At least in principle it offers away to promote US adjustment to shifting comparative advantage by ensuring that firms in emerging export sectors are able to find markets abroad. In fact, most of the industries represented in 301 cases seem improbable as reflections of emerging US comparative advantage.
The statute requires imposition of trade sanctions16 when the US Trade Representative
determines that a foreign country has violated or denied US rights under trade agreements, or has engaged in “unjustifiable, unreasonable or discriminatory acts, policies, or practices that burden or restrict U.S. commerce.” Under some other circumstances, retaliation is discretionary.
In the case of foreign “targeting,” governments may provide subsidies to exporters
competing with US exporters in their own domestic market or in third markets. In this case, the US cannot respond with a countervailing duty. Under Section 301, the USTR is directed to “establish an advisory panel to recommend measures which will promote the competitiveness of the domestic industry affected by the export targeting” [§ 2415 (b) (1) (A)].
While no other areas of the statute have as clear a potential link to adjustment, there are certainly ways of structuring actions taken under Section 301 that would either encourage adjustment out of the domestic industry or facilitate its expansion. For example, although it is not politically likely, USTR could choose to retaliate over imported inputs needed by the petitioning domestic industry and thus encourage a shift out of this activity. Alternatively, USTR could encourage expansion of the domestic industry by choosing retaliation targets that benefits the domestic industry. For example, in the Beef-Hormones 301 case, USTR chose to retaliate over imports of EU bovine and swine meat.
Both the perceived need for Section 301 and its potential scope have been reduced since the WTO was established in 1995. However, a 1999 WTO panel rejected EU claims that Section 301 procedures were not consistent with US WTO obligations.
急救啊，谢谢大家了!
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3 Import Penetration, Comparative Advantage, and Industry Use of Trade Remedies
Table 1 describes the frequency with which many of the US trade remedy laws and
programs have been used in recent years. In most cases, the “petitions” number indicates the number of industry-wide requests for US government intervention during the period indicated.
However, TAA for displaced workers shows the number of petitions from individual workers, while TAA for Firms shows the number of firms certified to receive benefits.
From the standpoint of the adjustment environment created by US trade remedies, it is relevant to know whether the workers, firms, and industries that request assistance under the various programs are the ones facing the greatest pressure to adjust to changing conditions in the international market. Also, relative to other US industries, is the revealed comparative advantage of “frequent users” of trade remedies declining over time? To address these questions, we refer to Table 2.
Table 2 provides a simple comparison of measures by industry of import-penetration
ratios and revealed compared advantage (RCA) for users versus non-users of some of these programs. Consider first the data on the mean and median industry-level import-penetration ratios for petitioning and non-petitioning industries. For each of the three programs in the table (safeguards, TAA, antidumping), we would expect petitioning industries to be associated with higher levels of import penetration than non-petitioners, as well as larger increases in import penetration over the last five years prior to the petition being filed. With the exception of the change in import penetration ratios for antidumping, that is exactly the qualitative pattern of results that we observe in the first two columns. The second two columns of Table 2 provide data on the industry-level RCA variables. For each of the three programs in the table, we would expect petitioning industries to be associated with lower levels of RCA than non-petitioners, as well as larger decreases over the last five years prior to the petition being filed. Again, the
qualitative pattern of the results, i.e., the means and median of the data for petitioning and nonpetitioning industries are consistent with that hypothesis.
We conclude from this rough empirical exercise that the industries that face, or should face, adjustment to changing global market conditions are more likely than other industries to seek help under the various trade remedies discussed above. Thus, the “adjustment environment” created by these laws may play a significant role in determining the speed of adjustment and also the cost of adjustment. In the next section we consider the case of textiles and apparel, a major recipient of import relief under several of these laws
4 Trade Remedies and Adjustment
With the exception of TAA, most of the policies discussed above offer some degree of protection of the domestic industry from competing imports. Even when acknowledging costs associated with protection, i.e., higher prices to consumers and downstream industries, proponents of trade remedies usually justify their use in terms of favorable effects on domestic output, employment, earnings, and income distribution. There is often the hope that increased profitability may encourage firms in a protected industry to make investments required to adopt new technologies. Yet the effects on firms and workers in protected industries are complex, and policies are often ineffective in attaining their stated goals.
Baldwin (1982, 1985) catalogs a number of now-familiar reasons why protection of an industry may cause a smaller reduction in imports and a smaller associated increase in domestic output than anticipated. Country-specific trade remedies such as antidumping measures or countervailing duties encourage diversion of trade to as-yet unrestricted alternative import sources, a response documented for products ranging from textiles and apparel to automobiles.19 Trade may also be diverted to related products or product forms not covered by the restriction.
Consumers faced with higher prices may shift their demand to now-cheaper substitutes.
Downstream users may also shift production off-shore to avoid higher domestic prices, as in the case of laptop producers affected by US antidumping duties on flat-panel displays (Irwin 2002, 80). Industrial users of highly protected sugar shifted to alternative sweeteners; under NAFTA some candy manufacturers shifted production to Canada and Mexico. When protected by a quantitative restriction on imports, a domestic supplier with market power may find it profitable to produce less rather than more output and thus may reduce rather than increase employment. When faced with quantitative trade restrictions or specific tariffs in the US market, foreign suppliers often find it profitable to upgrade the quality of their exports, a response documented in Korean footwear as well as Japanese autos.
Even more important in the longer term are induced changes in the structure of the
domestic industry. One such response is foreign direct investment (FDI). Although
Volkswagen’s ultimately unsuccessful US investment preceded Japan’s voluntary export
restraint, the VER played a key role in accelerating FDI in the US by Japanese firms. Contrary to the widespread belief that Japanese success relied on country-specific conditions that could not be replicated in US factories, Japanese “transplants” claimed an increasing share of the domestic market; other foreign companies followed suit. Struggling to compete, US producers have gradually introduced some of the managerial and technological approaches believed to account for Japanese success.
While foreign-controlled US plants certainly augmented domestic production and employment compared to a situation in which the same autos were imported, it has also brought about significant changes within the industry that are not apparent from aggregate performance measures. The most fundamental change is a continuing decline in the market share of the traditional “big three” – i.e., protection has helped the domestic industry much more than it has helped the United Auto Workers and the firms that asked for protection.20 In its last fiscal year, Toyota’s earnings were more than the three US companies combined (New York Times, 20 May 2004). Moreover, the newer plants are mostly far from Detroit, and their workers are not unionized. And, typical of most US manufacturing, output per workers has been rising for all firms, i.e., employment has been falling relative to output.
Even when FDI is not an important factor, trade remedies may induce substantial changes within the domestic industry. The extent of induced change within a declining but protected sector is well illustrated by the case of textiles and apparel. Textile imports from Japan had already begun to threaten the US industry before World War II. A 1956 VER on Japanese exports of cotton textiles to the US paved the way for entry by other exporter and fibers. Efforts to control trade diversion eventually produced the Multifiber Agreement, “the single most important barrier to developing country exports of manufactures” (Pearson 2004, 61), though scheduled for termination by 2005. Yet despite escalating protection at rising cost to domestic consumers,21 imports continued their inexorable rise. Between 1972 and 1997, the real value of textile imports nearly tripled, while apparel imports soared by a factor of ten (Levinsohn and
Petropoulos 2001, Table 1).
Not surprisingly, the number of US plants and industry employment fell over the same period. But even within the context of overall decline, new plants opened at nearly the same rate that established plants closed. From 1987 to 1992, the average gross rate of exit of plants in textiles was 31 %, while the average gross rate of plant entry was 28%; the corresponding numbers over the same period for apparel were 46% and 49% (Levinsohn and Petropoulos 2001, Table 3). These large rates reflect relocation within the United States, as textile producers have all but abandoned high-cost locations in New England in favor of southern states. Apparel manufacturing has shifted from its traditional eastern base in New England and New York to the south and California, as immigrants from Europe, once the mainstay of the labor force in the apparel industry, have been replaced by immigrants from Asia and Latin America.
Levinsohn and Petropoulos conclude that “in a probabilistic sense, inefficient firms die,” i.e., after controlling for size of plant, wages paid, capital stock per worker, and measures of outsourcing, firms with lower productivity are more likely to exit. “Those who worry that the crazy-quilt of protection afforded by the MFA allows inefficient plants to prosper while protecting them from the realities of the world marketplace should find some solace in this result.” Yet substantial continuing investment and new hires in these secularly shrinking industries raises other concerns.
The “creative destruction” in the highly protected domestic textile and apparel industries illustrates the pernicious effect of protection for highly competitive industries that are losing comparative advantage. As expected, protection raises domestic prices and profitability.
However, higher profitability can promote new investment in an industry with a shrinking
domestic market, thus forcing out current plants and workers (the latter due both to plant closings and to adoption of new capital-intensive and skill-intensive technologies that raise output per worker). The creative-destruction process is the domestic counterpart of trade diversion, with demand diverted from the most efficient foreign producers to the least inefficient domestic producers. Rather than easing the adjustment burden of existing plants and workers, protection in these industries may actually add to the distress of adjustment while retarding its progress.
急救啊，谢谢大家了!
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