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Journal of African Economies, Vol. 20, number 5, pp. 704 –736 doi:10.1093/jae/ejr023 online date 23 June 2011
The Effects of the Coffee Trademarking Initiative and Starbucks Publicity on Export Prices of Ethiopian Coffee†
Aslihan Arslan a,* and Christopher P. Reicher b
Downloaded from http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sheffield on October 12, 2012 a Poverty Reduction, Equity, and Development Research Group, Kiel Institute for The World Economy, Dusternbrooker Weg 120, 24105 Kiel, Germany ¨ b Monetary Policy under Market Imperfections Research Group, Kiel Institute for The World Economy, Dusternbrooker Weg 120, 24105 Kiel, Germany ¨ * Corresponding authors: Aslihan Arslan. E-mail: aslihan.arslan@ifw-kiel.de
Abstract
The Ethiopian government initiated the Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative in 2004 for three coffee origins: Sidama, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Following a court case between Starbucks and the Ethiopian government regarding the trademarking of ‘Sidamo’, Ethiopian government engaged in a public relations campaign to raise awareness for the Initiative, which was widely publicised in the international media especially after Oxfam organised a public campaign. This paper evaluates the effect of these interventions on the export prices of trademarked Ethiopian coffees. We find that the prices of the trademarked coffees increased by about 10% relative to the non-trademarked coffees following these interventions. The magnitude of this change is comparable with the farm gate prices reported in the literature; however, we cannot establish direct causation or observe the passthrough into farm gate prices.
†
The fieldwork for this research was funded by the Poverty, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet) at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The support is greatly appreciated. We thank to Mohammed Garad at the Light Years IP for the support in obtaining the data used in this paper. We are also thankful to Ron Layton at
The Effects of the Coffee Trademarking Initiative and Starbucks Publicity on Export Prices of Ethiopian Coffee†
Aslihan Arslan a,* and Christopher P. Reicher b
Downloaded from http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sheffield on October 12, 2012 a Poverty Reduction, Equity, and Development Research Group, Kiel Institute for The World Economy, Dusternbrooker Weg 120, 24105 Kiel, Germany ¨ b Monetary Policy under Market Imperfections Research Group, Kiel Institute for The World Economy, Dusternbrooker Weg 120, 24105 Kiel, Germany ¨ * Corresponding authors: Aslihan Arslan. E-mail: aslihan.arslan@ifw-kiel.de
Abstract
The Ethiopian government initiated the Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative in 2004 for three coffee origins: Sidama, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Following a court case between Starbucks and the Ethiopian government regarding the trademarking of ‘Sidamo’, Ethiopian government engaged in a public relations campaign to raise awareness for the Initiative, which was widely publicised in the international media especially after Oxfam organised a public campaign. This paper evaluates the effect of these interventions on the export prices of trademarked Ethiopian coffees. We find that the prices of the trademarked coffees increased by about 10% relative to the non-trademarked coffees following these interventions. The magnitude of this change is comparable with the farm gate prices reported in the literature; however, we cannot establish direct causation or observe the passthrough into farm gate prices.
†
The fieldwork for this research was funded by the Poverty, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet) at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The support is greatly appreciated. We thank to Mohammed Garad at the Light Years IP for the support in obtaining the data used in this paper. We are also thankful to Ron Layton at
References: Downloaded from http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sheffield on October 12, 2012 Coffee Trademarks in Ethiopia Downloaded from http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sheffield on October 12, 2012 728 Worako, T., H. van Schalkwyk, Z. Alemu and G. Ayele (2008) ‘Producer price and price transmission in a deregulated Ethiopian coffee market’. Agrekon, 47: 492 – 508. Downloaded from http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sheffield on October 12, 2012 730