I wrote THIS paper (with Joon) on one possible way in which the fair trade idea could be net beneficial, in theory, for “rational altruists”.
I tried to supplement it with some evidence on whether the premium paid by consumers was less, equal to, or more than the premium that the farmers were getting per unit. I never published the empirical part because the analysis was very hard to do; it was very hard to compare like-for-like in terms of the quality of fair trade and non-fair trade products.
I wrote THIS paper (with Joon) on one possible way in which the fair trade idea could be net beneficial, in theory, for “rational altruists”.
I tried to supplement it with some evidence on whether the premium paid by consumers was less, equal to, or more than the premium that the farmers were getting per unit. I never published the empirical part because the analysis was very hard to do; it was very hard to compare like-for-like in terms of the quality of fair trade and non-fair trade products.