This study examines whether geographical indications (GIs) truly enhance producer quality, which is a main regulatory justification for the GIs’ existence. We compare the quality of wine producers with and without GIs and test for the effectiveness of GIs based on (a) the strictness of GIs’ production standards and (b) GIs’ organizational characteristics as a collective brand. We argue that GIs encourage producer quality because they attenuate free‐riding problems, provide incentives to invest and facilitate knowledge sharing. Focusing on the Spanish wine industry, the results reveal that except for wineries with the lowest GI category (i.e., protected geographical indication), GI wineries show higher quality than non‐GI wineries. We also observe that more stringent categories increase quality but at a decreasing rate. Regarding the influence of organizational features, we found that collective action problems seem to be relevant. First, above a certain threshold, the number of producers affiliated with a GI decreases the wine producer's average quality (i.e., it shows an inverted U‐shaped relationship with quality). Second, GIs covering very large geographic areas are found to be less effective. [EconLit Citations: L15, Q12, Q18].

中文翻译：

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寻找葡萄酒的农业食品质量：是否足以加入地理标志？

这项研究检查了地理标志（GI）是否真正提高了生产者的质量，这是地理标志存在的主要监管依据。我们比较有和没有地理标志的葡萄酒生产商的质量，并基于（a）地理标志生产标准的严格性和（b）地理标志作为集体品牌的组织特征来测试地理标志的有效性。我们认为地理标志可以减轻生产者乘坐的麻烦，提供激励投资和促进知识共享的能力，因此可以提高生产者的质量。着眼于西班牙葡萄酒行业，结果表明，除了地理标志类别最低（即受保护的地理标志）的酒庄以外，地理标志酒庄的质量也高于非地理标志酒庄。我们还观察到，更严格的类别会提高质量，但速度会降低。关于组织特征的影响，我们发现集体行动问题似乎是相关的。首先，超过某个阈值，与地理标志相关的生产者数量会降低葡萄酒生产者的平均质量（即，它与质量呈倒U型关系）。其次，发现地理标志覆盖非常大的地理区域效果不佳。[EconLit引文：L15，Q12，Q18]。