Religion & Liberty Online Archives

International Trade

July 19, 2010

Fair Trade: Rhetoric and Reality

The NYT Freakonomics blog notes that the Fair Trade movement does not exist independently of the laws of economics: But the problem with Fair Trade coffee is that as the program scales up, the alternative market ethics it wants to sustain collapse. Continue Reading...
July 12, 2010

Walk, Pedal, Drive

Some of the assumptions built into the mainstream international aid and development movement are puzzling. Among them is the faulty assumption that the comparison that matters most is how the developing world is doing in relation to the developed. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2010

Micro-Finance and Major Disaster

As we’ve noted before, the Planet Money team is on the ground in Haiti getting a hands-on look at the economic situation after the disaster. Today they broadcast a moving story of an entrepreneur who lost all her capital in the earthquake. Continue Reading...
January 13, 2010

Promises and perils of globalization

Thomas P.M. Barnett has written a good, concise, piece on the consolidation and deepening of globalization, specifically Wal-Mart’s tapping into local producers in developing countries. (HT: Real Clear World) As far as I can tell, there are no Wal-Mart’s in Italy, but having spent the last three weeks at my parents’ home in Flint, Michigan and shopping at places like Wal-Mart and Target, I can clearly see how far behind the curve Italy is. Continue Reading...
November 06, 2009

Critiquing Fair Trade and Dead Aid

Cardus’ Robert Joustra rightly pillories “fair trade” along with the logic of foreign aid in a challenging article, “Fair Trade and Dead Aid: ‘My Voice Can’t Compete with an Electric Guitar.'” Continue Reading...
July 02, 2009

U.S. Doctoral Degree Prestige in Science, Engineering, Economics

A recent NBER working paper, “Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education,” takes a look at trends in doctoral degrees awarded by American institutions in the physical sciences, engineering, and economics. From the abstract, “The representation of a large number of students born outside the United States among the ranks of doctorate recipients from U.S. Continue Reading...
April 13, 2009

A Micro-Lending Prelate

Zenit reports a new initiative by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, Italy: “he is donating a year’s stipend and part of his personal savings to initiate a diocesan bank that will offer micro-credits to the poor.” Continue Reading...
November 20, 2008

Pirate Morality

By now you’ve read one or more stories about the increasing levels of piracy on Africa’s east coast, brought into the spotlight by the recent capture of a Saudi oil tanker. Continue Reading...
July 15, 2008

Free trade follies

Last week presidential candidate John McCain distanced himself from economic adviser Phil Gramm, after Gramm’s comments that America had become a “nation of whiners” and that the current concerns over a lagging economy amounted to a “mental recession” rather than any real phenomena. Continue Reading...