Theme 5 – Sustainable agrifood systems, value chains and power structures 13 th European IFSA Symposium, 1-5 July 2018, Chania (Greece) 1 Economic impacts of Geographical Indications: Worldwide evidences from 9 case studies Emilie Vandecandelaere a , Catherine Teyssier a , Dominique Barjolle b , Stéphane Fournier c , Philippe Jeanneaux d , Olivier Beucherie e a FAO, emilie.vandecandelaere@fao.org ; Catherine.Teyssier@fao.org b ETHZ, barjolle@ethz.ch c Montpellier SupAgro, stephane.fournier@supagro.fr d VetAgroSup, philippe.jeanneaux@vetagro-sup.fr e Beucherie Conseil, o.beucherie@wanadoo.fr Abstract: Geographical Indications (GI) are Intellectual Property Rights that are defined in international agreements (ADPIC, Lisbon agreement) as well as in multilateral (European regulation, and other regional laws) and national laws. This paper presents preliminary research results from a vast data collection and analysis of the economic impacts of GI processes worldwide. GI “processes” are understood as the pathways from product having strong reputation, to the group of concerned stakeholders and especially the producers (farmers and processors), along the interaction with public authorities in charge of the registration and the protection of the use of the related geographical name. Nine case studies have been selected in order to offer a range of situations by ensuring diversity of countries, agricultural sectors, markets, size of the value chain, legal protection framework (sui generis or trademark), and type of strategies (promotion or protection). Keywords: Geographical Indications, Economic impacts. 1 Introduction Geographical indications (GIs) may be considered as tools for the development of sustainable food systems, thanks to the territorial anchoring of GI products and the collective strategy of producers to promote, guarantee or protect their origin-linked quality product and preserve their local resources. The anticipated effect of GIs is an increase in producers’ income through a better selling price, greater competitiveness (differentiation strategy) and commercial advantages (reserved use of the name) (Jena & Grote 2010). The definition of specific origin-linked characteristics (i.e. connected to natural and cultural resources) is moreover a way of preserving the local heritage linked to this production. GIs are implemented in different countries, as development tools that allow better recognition of products, the boosting of producers’ organizations and their power in negotiations within the value chain, and improved market access, as a number of technical assistance projects have shown. However, donors and other partners often require economic data relating to the development of GIs. Unfortunately, little work has been done to analyse of the economic impacts of GIs. The main reason is the difficulty of distinguishing the impacts of the legal protection of GIs from other factors such as the organization of the value chain and power relations, the marketing strategy or producers’ skills. Another reason lies in the relatively recent development of GIs, especially in developing countries or those in transition, so that there has not been enough time to obtain the full picture needed for analysis of major impacts. The purpose of this paper is to assess the economic impacts of instituting a GI as a protective mechanism or tool, through the analysis of ten case studies of products in various regions of the world that have GI recognition and meet very well the conditions in terms of justification, heritage and collective dimensions, and potential for differentiation. It is a matter of measuring the capacity of the GI as a protective tool to generate economic effects in terms of price, income for producers (and hence redistribution of value down to the first link in the chain) and market access. The scope of the paper is the economic impacts of GI “processes”, understood