Antidumping Protection hurts Exporters: Firm-level evidence from France

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