Competition Buzz: Total Strangers or Soul Mates? Antidumping and Competition Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Sarath Rajapatirana & J. Luis Guasch

World Bank working papers, 1998

As Latin American and Caribbean countries have liberalized their trade regimes, they have enthusiastically adopted antidumping measures that reduce competition. Competition laws are only beginning to make their appearance in the region. Antidumping and competition policies are strangers in the region when they should be soul mates.

As a result of trade reforms in the 1980s and 1990s Latin American and Caribbean countries became more open than at any time since World War II. However, these countries have recently begun to use antidumping measures as the new protection weapon of choice, as other barriers to trade have been reduced. In fact, the fastest growing antidumping actions are within regional integration arrangements, where they are being applied by member countries against each other.

Guasch and Rajapatirana argue that antidumping is anticompetitive and that its usual justification as a counter to predatory behavior is not relevant in the region. It is imperative, they say, that antidumping be contained if not altogether eliminated. While they find that safeguards are less anticompetitive than antidumping, they believe that all exceptional protection measures, such as antidumping, countervailing, and safeguards, should be considered together with competition policies. In other words, they should become soul mates rather than remain total strangers.

Full Content: SSRN

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