Antidumping protection hurts exporters:firm-level evidence from France

Firms protected by antidumping measures do not unequivocally benefit from them. Antidumpingprotection benefits non-exporters active on the protected market by raising their domestic sales, buthurts exporters of similar products as the protected ones. Export sales of protected firms fall byalmost 8% compared to a relevant control group of unprotected firms. This effect more than doublesfor firms that are global, i.e. firms with foreign affiliates. Measured at the product-level, extra-EUexports of goods protected by antidumping fall by 36% while exports to target countries fall by asmuch as 66% following protection. Protection also has an effect on the extensive margin, by raisingthe probability to start exporting for firms that were initially non-exporters. Existing exporters facea higher probability to stop exporting during protection. Finally, we find that the productivity ofexporters falls while that of non-exporters rises during antidumping protection. We offer a numberof plausible explanations for our findings that stem from the heterogeneous firm literature. We alsodiscuss the importance of our findings for policy.....