Any fair trade premium will be dissipated by rent-seeking: if you raise the effective price of coffee, more poor people will compete to grow it, so the group collectively spends more resources chasing the transfer than the transfer is worth, wasting real resources.

causalpending

Speaker

Mike Munger

Evidence Quote

any increment that they're likely to get is going to be dissipated by rent-seeking

Source

Mike Munger on Fair Trade and Free Trade 12/3/2007EconTalk
Created: 6/17/2026, 10:31:24 AM

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