Funktioniert fairer Handel? - Ökonomische Überlegungen zum alternativen Handel mit Kaffee

In the last years more and more consumers evince increasing interest in fair traded products. This trade conceptis designed to help mainly producers of agricultural products to keep some basic social producing criteria. Thedifferent Fair-Trade-Organisations try to implement better work- and life conditions in the developing countriesby announcing those producers fixed prices for the current products. The fixed price is considered to be just andacceptable since it does not exploit producers social weakness. It is perceptibly higher than the price at the worldmarket. A part of all consumers pay the higher price and support in that way the efforts of the Fair-Trade-Organisations. The present article discusses the economics of the fair trade instrument and the degree ofachievement of the target objectives. The mechanism of the fair-trade-concept is illustrated considering theexample of trade with coffee, because coffee stands for the major share of all fair traded products.