Pietra Rivoli Book

The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy

Pirtra Rivoli

Chapter 1-4


1.) How do the markets Rivoli discusses differ from an idealized, pure market theory?

The market that Rivoli discusses in chapter 4 is quite different from the pure market theory in that the ways how farmers sold their cotton was a simple test of grabbing a handful of cotton. The buyer sets a price and the seller agree because they did not want to risk it incase no one buys it. They did it for survival and the urge to provide for their families. There wasn’t any legal system at first but after a while a system was develop and it made it easier for farmers to sell their cotton through PCCA’s marketing pool which worked quite well for farmers.

2.) Choose one specific example of culture interacting with economics from these chapters.

Cultures definitely interact with economies in ways that cultures play a role in the production of goods and services. One example the book talks about is the comparison between different country and their way of producing cotton. Competition was mention in that China and India could have been a head in this market but because of the lack of education and technology, the United States was producing so much more. Another comparison was to West Africa and how US produced 400 times more than Africa. (p. 62).

3.) What surprises you in this section of the book?

This book overall, has been really interesting to read. There are many shocking things within the first four chapters. I have never really thought about where t-shirts came from or about the cotton industry. Most of the facts in the book were surprising to me because when we think of markets we tend to think of the end products (results), and the sales but never the process of how a good is made, produced and shipped. This book definitely opens my eyes and made me more interest in economics. One interesting thing how the cotton industry is a very important industry but we never really think about it after the end of slavery and plantations. The cotton industry not only contributed to making t-shirts, clothing but also to chips making industry and many more products such as toothbrushes, ball point pen, hotdogs, and much more. (p. 54).



Work Cited

Rivoli, Pietra. The travels of a t-shirt in the global economy: an economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.