Greg Mankiw and Phillip L. Swagel write,
In February, seven of nine newly elected senators publicly endorsed the Byrd Amendment, a provision that encourages American companies to file antidumping lawsuits by awarding the revenues collected from the resulting tariffs to the litigating companies.
… If a foreign firm sells its product in the U.S. market at too attractive a price, domestic firms can threaten it with an antidumping suit that will lead to hefty tariffs and higher prices.
It is easy to see why anti-dumping is, as Mankiw calls it, a “third rail” that no politician wants to touch. Asking a politician to come out against rent-seeking is like asking a prostitute to come out against exchanging money for sex.
READER COMMENTS
Fazal Majid
Aug 19 2005 at 6:13pm
Now, now, there is no reason to be so scathing of prostitutes…
Brock
Aug 20 2005 at 7:30am
So how do we change their incentives?
wing
Aug 21 2005 at 1:21pm
what about consumer’s interest?
would that serve as some sort of check and balance
and hopefully strke some sort of balance, taking into account: jobs, pay, industry, consumers
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