1 Collective versus Brand Reputations for Geographical Indication Labelled Foods”.

For many geographical indication labelled products, firms can benefit from a reputation for quality that is derived from both its individual brand and its production region. This paper analyzes the quality choice for a firm whose return to investing in quality is two-fold: collective and firm reputation. Consumer’s uncertainty regarding quality is modeled as a time lag between the changes in product quality and the resulting adjustment in collective and firm reputation. While the lag time is unique for the collective reputation process, we assume that individual firms have different “visibility”, and therefore the speed of the firm reputation updating process is specific to each producer