Is Fair Trade Honey Sweeter? An Empirical Analysis on the Effect of Affiliation on Productivity

De Luca RobertaBrunetti Marianna
CEIS Research Paper
We evaluate the impact of affiliation to Fair Trade on a sample of Chilean honey producers. Evidence from standard regressions and propensity score matching shows that affiliated farmers have higher productivity (income from honey per worked hour) than the control sample. Additional results on the effects of affiliation on training, cooperation and advances on payments suggest that affiliation contributed both to, and independently from, the economies of scale effect. Therefore, we show that the productivity effect is partially explained by the superior capacity of affiliated workers to exploit economies of scale.
Number: 141
Keywords: fair trade, economies of scale, productivity
JEL codes: D63, D64, O18, O19, O22
Volume: 6
Issue: 12
Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Revision Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009