The Interaction Effect of Geographical Indications and Food Inventions on Regional Productivity

In the food sector, Geographical Indications (GIs) as well as technological advancements play a crucial role on productivity and are of high economic importance for many European regions. How does the number of GI products and food patents affect labour productivity in European regions? Studying this, labour productivity was represented by the Gross Value Added (GVA) per employee of the manufacturing and agricultural sector, the two sectors expected to be mostly affected by the impact of GI products and food patents. A dataset was organised including data related to GIs and food patents of 255 European NUTS2 regions over the time period from 2000 to 2011. The data regarding GIs and food patents was collected from the DOOR and the OECD RegPat database respectively. Results show a positive and significant impact of both, GIs and food patents, on the regional manufacturing GVA per employee, but a negative combined effect of these two elements. Similar results, but less significative, are shown on the agricultural labour productivity. The implications of these findings in terms of policy design are then discussed extensively.