Producto tipicos y desarollo rural:entre calidad y polititicas de gobiernanza

Typical products are considered, at the same time, a resource and a hope for the whole European Union. They are considered as resource because they represent an important part of production and cultural heritage of many European rural areas; as an opportunity, because of their ability to meet multiple types of consumers. They are also considered a lever on which to base economic development policies at the local level and especially in rural regions. The objective of this work is twofold. The first is to illustrate the main economic features that characterize the typical products and the possible strategies that consumers and producers can take respectively facing the possibility of using and producing goods with high intrinsic quality, thereby maximizing their utility level. The second objective arises directly from these strategies and aims to explain why the local development policies are aimed to distribute the revenue related to the production of typical products through behaviors which constitute collective actions of governance. An empirical example is represented by the Culatello di Zibello PDO, which represents the positive and negative, a significant example of how a group of local producers have tried to enhance their product and the territory of origin adopting policies to protect the quality, even at the cost of clashing with other types of actors who, although, are involved in the supply chain.