From Publishers Weekly
During a 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization, Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown, looked on as an activist seized the microphone and demanded, "Who made your T-shirt?" Rivoli determined to find out. She interviewed cotton farmers in Texas, factory workers in China, labor champions in the American South and used-clothing vendors in Tanzania. Problems, Rivoli concludes, arise not with the market, but with the suppression of the market. Subsidized farmers, and manufacturers and importers with tax breaks, she argues, succeed because they avoid the risks and competition of unprotected global trade, which in turn forces poorer countries to lower their prices to below subsistence levels in order to compete. Rivoli seems surprised by her own conclusions, and while some chapters lapse into academic prose and tedious descriptions of bureaucratic maneuvering, her writing is at its best when it considers the social dimensions of a global economy, as in chapters on the social networks of African used-clothing entrepreneurs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
What a t-shirt can teach us about world trade
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy takes the reader on a fascinating, around-the-world journey to reveal the economic and political lessons from the life story of a simple product in a highly competitive global marketplace. Over a five-year period, business professor Pietra Rivoli traveled from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory, and from trade negotiations in Washington to a used clothing market in Africa, to investigate firsthand compelling questions about the politics, economics, ethics, and history of today's international business landscape. Looking closely at the lives of Texas cotton farmers, Chinese textile producers, and other colorful characters from around the world, Rivoli uses her t-shirt to illustrate crucial lessons in the globalization debate and to demonstrate the impact of markets and politics on both rich and poor countries. A clear-eyed examination of the workings of the global economy, as well as an engaging story, this important narrative reveals surprising secrets of success in world markets-and its price for individuals and communities around the world.
Pietra Rivoli (Bethesda, MD) is Associate Professor at Georgetown University. She specializes in finance, international business, and social issues in business.
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy takes the reader on a fascinating, around-the-world journey to reveal the economic and political lessons from the life story of a simple product in a highly competitive global marketplace. Over a five-year period, business professor Pietra Rivoli traveled from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory, and from trade negotiations in Washington to a used clothing market in Africa, to investigate firsthand compelling questions about the politics, economics, ethics, and history of today's international business landscape. Looking closely at the lives of Texas cotton farmers, Chinese textile producers, and other colorful characters from around the world, Rivoli uses her t-shirt to illustrate crucial lessons in the globalization debate and to demonstrate the impact of markets and politics on both rich and poor countries. A clear-eyed examination of the workings of the global economy, as well as an engaging story, this important narrative reveals surprising secrets of success in world markets-and its price for individuals and communities around the world.
Pietra Rivoli (Bethesda, MD) is Associate Professor at Georgetown University. She specializes in finance, international business, and social issues in business.
