Friday, August 1, 2008

Off to Mexico!

On Sunday I leave for Mexico for a week. So it is unlikely there will be any blog updates.

The trip is part of a new research project I'm working on regarding fair trade coffee. Luckily I already have access to some good data, but I don't really have a sense of the fair trade coffee market in Mexico.

In previous research I have found that farming coffee in Honduras and Nicaragua was associated with lower levels of education. Is the high price of fair trade sufficient to provide income so parents can send their children to school or is it so high that children want to work on the coffee farm instead of attend school.

At the same time, Mexico has a large conditional cash transfer program that pays households if they send children to school through middle school.

Lots of other issues including migration to explore. Hopefully my trip will give me a better sense of the realities before I get too close to the data.
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1 comment:

Britt said...

Oh, dude, the fact that I'm buying fair trade coffee and tea means little caffeine-growin' kids aren't going to college?

You just can't win if you're an American, can you? I think I'll just go to Sweden and live in a yurt and drink fermented yak milk.