The Oxford Handbook of Local Competitiveness

David B. Audretsch is a Distinguished Professor and Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, where he also serves as Director of the Institute for Development Strategies. He is also an Honorary Professor of Industrial Economics and Entrepreneurship at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. In addition, he serves as a Visiting Professor at the King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, and is a Research Fellow of the Centre forEconomic Policy Research in London.Albert N. Link is Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). He received, with honors, a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Richmond in 1971 and a Ph.D. in economics from Tulane University in 1976. After receiving the Ph.D., he joined the economics faculty at Auburn University, where he remained until he joined the economics faculty at UNCG in 1982. Professor Link's research focuses on technology and innovation policy, the economics of R&D,and policy/program evaluation. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Technology Transfer.Mary Lindenstein Walshok is Associate Vice Chancellor, Public Programs, Dean, University Extension and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Walshok is a leading thinker on aligning workforce development with regional economic growth and innovation. As an industrial sociologist, she has been researching various American regions for the US Department of Labor, NSF, and Lilly Foundation. One of her current research projects is an NSF-funded study ofthe role of boundary-spanning organizations in shaping the social and cultural dynamics of highly innovative regions.