There was a RAND report released recently about all this stuff. Not dubious, though more equivocal. Look for it if you're interested.

You can skip the all the middlemen and fair trade "business" that has set itself up sort of like the "organic" business in this country and buy coffee from shops that buy their beans direct from small farms themselves such as Old City Coffee...

__________________
"i live my life in the city"

What is dubious about the "Cafe Hayek" piece, which may or may not be true or may or may not be from the NYT, is that is doesn't conform to journalistic standards. There's a Rand report that you know about, unlike "Cafe Hayek" Rand has a reputation, so why not share it?

You guys should explain just what "fair trade" means, because it's kind of an abtraction until you learn about it.

<sigh>

I didn't share it because I wasn't interested in taking the time to find it. But now I feel obliged, especially because I made the wrong citation. It was a cato institute paper:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj27n1/cj27n1-9.pdf

I doubt you will read it, though. Know how I know? Because you assert that there is doubt that the NYT piece quoted on cafe hayek is real. I just searched NYT for "fair trade coffee" and found the article in question on 3/19/07, the same day as the hayek post. It took 30 seconds. If you really wanted to know, you would have done the same. The NYT has also run pieces that are favorable to fair trade.

Many bright economists point out what I think could be fatal flaws in the whole fair trade system. Here is Tyler Cowen:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma...nefits_fr.html

There are jillions of others floating around. I think we still need to know more, but the cafe hayek post is not a crazy hit piece.

Well, looks like Jizay won that debate and that varga guy was the loser.

The other day I did run a search for the article using " "fair trade", coffee, "new york times" and didn't find it. I did it again today and didn't find. If you have some information you have the responsibility to share it.

This seems to be the most recent article from 4-22-2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/wo...prod=permalink

As to the report from the CATO this is the place for it, and I'm glad you found it and put it here.

Search on the NYT site itself. "Fair trade coffee" will turn up the 3/19 article as well as the one above. It's gated.

Sorry to come at you hard. The cafe hayek blog is done by the chair of the econ dept. at George Mason. He is a respected scholar and certainly wouldn't lie about the article being from NYT. Which isn't to say the post isn't just his opinion...

The chair in the Econ Dept. at George Mason should always give a full citation. I would think it hurts his reputation when he doesn't.

The CATO report is done by a graduate student, and grad students do fine work and this is a good piece. The first thing that struck me about the article was this line from the opening.

"It is true that the Fair Trade coffee
system—the producers, exporters, importers, and retailers operating
by the rules and standards of FLO—has improved living standards for
many participating coffee growers (Bacon 2005, Raynolds 2004)."

Mr. Weber spent his time in Peru and going to Fair Trade events in this country. In terms of the effects on the average coffee farmer Mr. Weber doesn't seem to have met one while he was in Peru. The article is about the economic effects, give & take, and relative conditions between Fair Trade buyers, producers, exporters, and the standard commericial buyers, producers, exporters. It seemed to me that his basic assertion was that Fair Trade organizations will need time to sort out supply & demand, effects of the market place and so forth. I think I could have written this same paper without going to Peru for 10 months. Basically he cites Dr. Bacon, the Economist, etc.

I am grateful for seeing the article because it led to another article which Mr. Weber cites; althought it's not nearly as sexy. But it was written by a Ph.D rather than a grad student:

Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair
Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce
Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern
Nicaragua?
CHRISTOPHER BACON *
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

http://www.ecodes.org/pages/especial...docs/bacon.pdf