Specific products and territorial development. The paradoxical case of Aubrac

It is generally recognized that the presence of specific resources constitutes one of the ways of territorial development. However, in certain situations, generic resources (easily usable in other productive contexts) can nearly constitute specific resources. This paradox occurs thanks to two combined phenomena : the existence of asymmetries of information between producers and consumers, the insertion in a basket of localized goods and services of the good produced with generic resources. We illustrate this paradox with the case of the Laguiole knife made on the trays of Aubrac in the confluence of Midi-Pyrenees, Auvergne and Languedoc-Roussillon regions.