Rivoli Preface and Prologue Answer Key

Preface

1. What was the conflict Rivoli begins her preface with? What were the contending interest groups?

Rivoli begins her preface with an account of anti-globalization/anti-World Trade Organization protests which began in Seattle in 1999. The conflict included a diverse group of interests called anti-globalization activists. They protested the policies of a diverse group that included multinational corporations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund/World Bank.

2. What story will Rivoli tell us? How does it relate to globalization?

Rivoli will tell “the story of the people, politics, and markets” that created her T-shirt. Her T-shirt is simply one consumer good that demonstrates the forces of globalization.

3. What is Rivoli’s purpose for telling this story?

Rivoli’s purpose is to explain economic and political lessons of global trade and to discover the morals inherent in that economic activity.

4. What is Rivoli’s training? Does that qualify her to tell this story?

Rivoli is classically trained financial and international economist. I think so. However, economics is not the only perspective that is useful for understanding this phenomenon.

5. What is the role of markets in this story?

Production of consumer goods is supposed to be determined by competitive economic markets. Rivoli discovered that, because of political policies, free markets do not operate in T-shirt production.

6. Rivoli states that her story “comes down on Dougherty’s side.” What is Dougherty’s side?

Dougherty is a free trade optimist who believes that markets survive only if they respond to backlashes, similar to the anti-globalization backlash.

Prologue

7. How was geography a factor in the early days of Sherry Fashions?

Northeastern residents vacationed in south Florida during the winter and wanted to buy souvenirs to bring back to the cold north. Sherry Fashions provided the trinkets, some of which he actually he bought in NY.

8. What was the supply chain of the scarves?

Scarf made and printed in Japan; shipped to NY; bought there by Sandler; transported to and sold in tourist shops in Miami by Northerners who took them back to NY and other parts of the North.

9. How did the conversion of Sherry Fashions to Sherry Manufacturing Company change that supply chain?

Sandler cut out his NY suppliers and imported blank T-shirts and began to print T-shirts in Miami.

10. What countries are Sherry’s T-shirt suppliers? Find them on a map and memorize the locations.

Mexico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Honduras, China, Pakistan, Botswana, India, South Korea

11. List 4 or 5 of the impediments to Sherry’s imports of blank T-shirts?

US import tariffs, US import quotas, US textile and apparel industries, Southern congressmen, Chinese bureaucracy

12. Why China?

They offer the cheapest blank T-shirts. They spin, knit and sew the fabric.

13. Why “Teksa”?

That’s where the cotton is grown.