CEPII, Recherche et Expertise sur l'economie mondiale
Protection of Geographical Indications in Trade Agreements: Is it worth it?


Charlotte Emlinger
Karine Latouche

 Highlights :
  • We rely on a unique dataset of firms and products concerned by Geographical Indications (GIs) in the French agri-food industry (excluding wine) for 2012-2019 to assess the impact of the inclusion of GIs in European bilateral agreements on trade margins.
  • Protection of geographical indications in EU Regional Trade Agreements helps French firms to reach new markets and to sell their products at higher price.
  • To be effective, the recognition of GIs in trade agreements must be accompanied by monitoring and control by partner authorities in their markets.

 Abstract :
This paper estimates the impact of the inclusion of GIs in bilateral agreements on French exports of foodstuffs. We rely on a unique dataset of firms and products concerned by Geographical Indications (GIs) in the French agri-food industry (excluding wine) for 2012-2019, merged with firm-product-destination level data from French Customs and the French National Institute of Statistics. Controlling for market and firm characteristics, we compare the exports of GI firms with those of non-GI firms before and after the signing of the 13 agreements (25 destination countries) that include a list of GIs to be protected. We show that the protection of GIs in EU RTA helps French firms to reach new markets and to sell their products at higher price, but it depends on the level of protection provided by the agreement.


 Keywords : Geographical Indications | Regional Trade Agreements | Trade Margins

 JEL : F10, F14
CEPII Working Paper
N°2024-05, March 2024

Full text

Reference
BibTeX (with abstract),
plain text (with abstract),
RIS (with abstract)

Contact: 
 Fields of expertise

Trade & Globalization
Back