Do co-operatives promote consumer social responsibility? The case of fair trade in Italy

Understanding the determinants of the demand for goods, which have been produced according to ethical considerations and marketed accordingly, has become an important research area in business economics. Less clear is the role that the social environment plays in shaping the preferences for ethically produced goods. Our main objective is to fill this gap in the literature by quantifying the extent to which the social capital generated by the presence of co-operatives in an area can have an impact on the consumers' motivations to buy ethically produced goods by using a sample of 889 individuals who have visited one of the retailers specialized in the distribution of ethically produced goods in four Italian regions. Our results show that the presence of co-operatives in an area has a positive influence on the consumers' preferences for fair trade goods.