Micro and Macro Determinants of trade temporary barriers: the Brazilian case over the last two decades

When the process of trade liberalisation started in Brazil in the late 1980s, a regime of temporary trade protection was put in place. This paper describes the use of TTB by Brazilian’s authority over the last two decades. We found them to be highly concentrated in a few sectors and to heavily rely on antidumping measures, rather than countervailing or safeguards measures. We also develop a simple empirical model to explain the micro and macroeconomic determinants of TTBs in Brazil. After controlling for the political strength of each HS six-digit sector in Brazil, as well as the time invariant characteristic of each trading partner and the level of domestic economic activity using fixed effects, we found that low import prices are not an important determinant of TTB in Brazil even though more than ninety percent of TTB that were put in place over the last two decades were antidumping cases. TTBs are more likely to be observed when imports are large. But, perhaps more interestingly, in sectors with low MFN tariffs and where MFN tariffs are falling, which suggest that MFN tariffs and TTBs are substitutes. Finally, changes in the bilateral exchange rate are important determinants of TTBs, with appreciations of the domestic currency making the imposition of restrictive TTBs more likely.