This book analyzes the factors behind the recent expansion of Fairtrade and questions whether the trust given to the scheme by "ethical" shoppers is warranted. It goes about this assessment by analyzing the claim of ethical shopping and by scrutinizing the specific contribution of the Fairtrade Certification Mark to producer s welfare. This assessment is based on information gathered in a mixture of desk-based research and fieldwork carried out in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Tanzania and South Africa. This book comprises separate chapters written by academics of various backgrounds, who have worked together on Fairtrade, it should however be noted that the authors do not necessarily hold a common set of views in respect to Fairtrade."

This book analyzes the factors behind the recent expansion of Fairtrade and questions whether the trust given to the scheme by "ethical" shoppers is warranted. It goes about this assessment by analyzing the claim of ethical shopping and by scrutinizing the specific contribution of the Fairtrade Certification Mark to producer's welfare. This assessment is based on information gathered in a mixture of desk-based research and fieldwork carried out in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Tanzania and South Africa. This book comprises separate chapters written by academics of various backgrounds, who have worked together on Fairtrade, it should however be noted that the authors do not necessarily hold a common set of views in respect to Fairtrade.

In the past decade, Russia has overcome inflation, privatized much of its industry, and prevented widespread deterioration in living standards. But major obstacles remain to sustained economic growth. This collection of papers is the first to offer a coherent, broad-based, and comprehensive overview of all aspects of the Russian post-Communist economic experience. Drawing from both East and West, it will be essential reading for all those trying to understand just where Russia is now, how it got there, and where it is going.

The Russian economy is an enigma to the West. Is it a sleeping giant or on the point of break-up and collapse? This collection of papers is the first to offer a coherent, broad-based, and comprehensive overview of all aspects of the Russian economic experience in the 1990s. Drawing from both East and West, it will be essential reading for all those trying to understand just where Russia is now, how it got there, and where it is going.

As evidenced by the yellow vests protest movement that began in France in 2018, the state of the French nation inspires gloom among many of its citizens. Brigitte Granville views this malaise as a peculiarly French symptom of the difficulties experienced by many advanced industrial democracies in the face of globalization, technology, and mass immigration. Granville brings trenchant criticism to bear in this wide-ranging survey of the political economy of contemporary France, building her case for the prosecution on the self-reinforcing rigidity produced by a narrow Parisian oligarchy that is both entitled and intellectually hidebound. What Ails France? applies an economist's vision to the monetary and fiscal pathologies flowing from this ideologically motivated technocratic rule, reflected in Europe's flawed monetary union, runaway indebtedness, and chronically high structural unemployment. The author marshals academic research from a wide range of disciplines to fuel a provocative and at times contentious analysis, proposing various treatments for French ailments that would reinvigorate the republican value of liberte with a new local slant. A refreshing, ideologically freewheeling discussion, What Ails France? provides a positive take on the innovations of our digital age, exploring their potential to bring about a more representative democracy and a fairer society.

Today's global economy, with most developed nations experiencing very low inflation, seems a world apart from the "Great Inflation" that spanned the late 1960s to early 1980s. Yet, in this book, Brigitte Granville makes the case that monetary economists and policymakers need to keep the lessons learned during that period very much in mind, lest we return to them by making the same mistakes we made in the past.

Granville details the advances in macroeconomic thinking that gave rise to the "Great Moderation"--a period of stable inflation and economic growth, which lasted from the mid-1980s through the most recent financial crisis. She makes the case that the central banks' management of monetary policy--hinging on expectations and credibility--brought about this period of stability, and traces the roots of this success back to the eighteenth-century foundations of modern monetary thought.

Tackling fundamental questions such as the causes of inflation and its relation to unemployment and growth, the natural rate of inflation hypothesis, the fiscal theory of the price level, and the proper goals of central banks, the book aims above all to demonstrate the dangers of forgetting the role of credibility in establishing sound monetary policy. With the lessons of the past firmly in mind, Granville presents stimulating ideas and proposals about inflation-targeting principles, which provide tools for present-day monetary authorities dealing with the forces of globalization, mercantilism, and reserve accumulation.