Globalization, Competitiveness, and State and Local Sources of Innovation and Growth

What determines who gets ahead and who falls behind in the global competition for jobs, earnings, profits, and wealth? Most research and writing on globalization has assumed that the role of place in the creation, maintenance, and change of the global economy is diminishing and that states, local governments, and local cultures have relatively little to do with the future of global political and economic change.

Professor Kevin Leicht's research represents a long-term collaboration with J. Craig Jenkins at Ohio State University, and also suggests that this assumption of the diminishing importance of place is wrong – places and spaces, who occupies them, what they know, what they do, and what others do or attempt to do to them are critical for understanding new sources of global inequalities in life chances and quality of life. State and local administrative capacities, human capital investments, and overall quality of life and social capital critically affect where and when high-quality jobs are created.

These results have far-reaching implications for researchers and policy makers interested in explaining why the global distribution of opportunities and life chances looks the way it does.

This research has received support from the Ohio State Center for Urban and Regional Planning.