International Coffee Regulation : A Comparison of the International Coffee Organization and the Fair Trade Coffee Regimes

An economic analysis of the the international coffee trade. The paper compares two regulatory regimes, the International Coffee Organization and the Fairtrade Labelling organization. The ICO is an intergovernmental group that has historically regulated the international coffee trade between exporters and importers of coffee. The FLO is an NGO that uses its label, and the fair trade standards that lable indicates, to improve the economic positions of coffee farmers. The paper concludes that both regulatory regimes cannot achieve longterm improvement in the economic conditions of coffee traders because they ignore the oversupply of coffee that has historically driven the real price of coffee down