JASON JOLLEY
Associate Dean, Professor and MPA Director
G. Jason Jolley is a Professor of Rural Economic Development and MPA Director at the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University. At Ohio University, he also serves as a Research Fellow in the Center for Entrepreneurship and directs Ohio University’s portion of the US Economic Development Administration University Center (joint with Bowling Green State University). His applied research portfolio includes serving as principal investigator on a subcontract with the Appalachian Partnership for Economic Growth to support a Regional Innovation Cluster (RIC) project with the U.S. Small Business Administration. He also leads the Voinovich School’s portion of the Ohio Economic Development Institute, an Ohio Economic Development Association initiative, in partnership with JobsOhio and Ohio University’s Voinovich School, to provide state-level certification to Ohio economic development practitioners.
Dr. Jolley previously worked at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as Senior Research Director for the Center for Competitive Economies, an applied economic development research center in the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Kenan-Flagler Business School. At UNC, he led the Center’s research activities in economic development incentive policy evaluation and development, strategic planning, impact analysis, and industry cluster characterization to address issues of economic competitiveness. In addition to teaching MBA, BSBA, and undergraduate policy courses at UNC, Dr. Jolley’s adjunct teaching experience includes serving as a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University where he taught MPA courses in economic development and public policy and as a Lecturer at Duke University in the Duke Center for International Development’s executive education program for visiting international government officials. In 2011, he was named a Faculty Fellow for NC State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues and in the same year received The Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award from the Carolina Center for Public Service for his applied economic development research in Chatham County, NC.
Dr. Jolley’s research focuses on economic development, entrepreneurship, and tax policy. Secondary research interests include public-private partnerships, public engagement in decision-making, non-regulatory governance, and corporate social responsibility. Dr. Jolley has authored/coauthored over 25 scholarly articles and 50 monographs/professional reports. His research has been published or is forthcoming in Economic Development Quarterly; Business Strategy and the Environment; Review of Policy Research; Journal of Economic Development in Higher Education; Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy; State and Local Government Review; Journal of Public Affairs Education; Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting, & Financial Management; Municipal Finance Journal; and Economic Development Journal, among other scholarly outlets. Dr. Jolley writes a semi-regular column, “Practical Views from the Ivory Tower,” for State Tax Notes, a professional tax publication. He received a Ph.D. in public administration from North Carolina State University, where he specialized in economic development and research methods, an M.A. in political science from the University of Tennessee and an A.B. in economics from UNC-Chapel Hill. Dr. Jolley current serves as President of the Mid-Continent Regional Science Association and on the editorial boards of Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy and Coastal Business Journal.