Who Benefits and Who Is Harmed by Laws Against Below-Cost Sales and Price Discrimination?
Imports sold below cost or below the price at which they are sold in the exporter’s home market benefit the U.S. economy as a whole, but they can injure individual firms and their workers. Workers who are potentially affected by dumping are worried about losing their jobs. Permanent loss of one’s job can be quite costly. It may take months to find another job, and the new job might not be as good as the one lost. In a full-employment economy, however, both displaced workers and capital can be expected to find reemployment eventually. In that respect, as in other aspects of dumping, the economic effects of job loss are the same whether the causes are domestic or foreign. Thus, the main beneficiaries of antidumping law are import-competing firms and their employees and to some extent the communities surrounding them. However, antidumping law protects firms and workers at the expense of the rest of the economy. The sectors of the economy that are hurt by antidumping law include consumers
