The Impact of Local Officials' Agriculture-related Experience on the Development of Agro-product Geographical Indications

There is a mismatch between the spatial distribution of agro-product geographical indications(AGI)and agricultural resources in China. Against the background of emphasizing the local officials' responsibility for territorial management, the development of AGI might be correlated with local officials' intrinsic characteristics. Applying the fixed effect panel regression model based on the data of Chinese cities from 2008 to 2018 and taking local officials' agriculture-related experience into consideration, it is found that the local officials with agriculture-related experience can significantly improve AGI development, and this impact increases over time. The analysis of the mechanism shows that both policy commitments and fiscal funds for agriculture have significant mediating effect between local officials' agriculture-related experience and the development of AGI. Compared with the role of fiscal funds for agriculture, the mediating effect of policy commitments is more obvious.