122 – Fair Trade impact and the price fetish

ABSTRACT

We here present the main final results coming from four different on-the-field fair trade impact studies, confronting them with the most recent literature and deriving some useful conclusions for the fair trade movement.

Our impact studies suggest that fair trade does have a positive impact on the life of its beneficiaries. But this happens not much in the most expected way, that is through the price premium, but rather by the effect of other “monetary but not price related” and “non monetary” criteria applied in the fair trade relationship.

This result looks coherent with Sen’s capabilities theory, depicting fair trade as a kind of commercial relationship able to increase producers’ capabilities and, consequently, their inclusion in the market.

Keywords: impact analysis, fair trade, monetary and non monetary wellbeing.