An approach to calculate ‘Fair’ prices and wages
By Ruud Bronkhorst
The Fair Trade movement often claims to pay the producer a ‘fair price’ for his products. There is no uniform economic definition of the word ‘fair’ however, with as a consequence that the word is meaningless. This article gives some approaches how to define ‘fair price’ in India, starting with the calculation of ‘fair wages’. A method is developed to calculate minimum fair wages and prices for the unorganised sector, where there are no trade-unions to represent the workers in their negotiations. Then the approach is applied to other countries as well.
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