Virtuous Interactions in Removing Exclusion: The Link between Foreign Market Access and Access to Education

We outline a methodology which aims to give an answer to the widespread demand of impact analyses by regulators or by funding agencies which need to evaluate the current and past performance of development projects and may lack time series evidence. We devise a retrospective panel data approach to evaluate the dynamics of the effects of fair trade affiliation on the schooling decisions of a sample of Thai organic rice producers across the past 20 years. We find that the probability of school enrolment in families with more than two children is significantly affected by fair trade affiliation years. We try to ascertain whether our finding is robust to endogeneity of producers' choices of local cooperative affiliation and adoption of organic techniques. The significant difference between pre- and post-fair trade affiliation performance documents that fair trade participation generates a significant break in the schooling decisions of affiliated households.