Erik Dietzenbacher (1958) obtained his MSc in Econometrics (1982) and his PhD in Economics (1991) from the University of Groningen. Currently he is Full Professor in Interindustry Economics at the University of Groningen. He is also Affiliate Research Professor at the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory (REAL) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Guest Professor at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS) in Beijing.

He was the project coordinator of "World Input-Output Database: Construction and Applications" (WIOD), a large-scale collaborative research project that was funded by the EU in its 7th Framework Programme, in which 11 international institutes participate, and which ran from 2009-2012. (All data can be downloaded for free at the WIOD website.)

He is currently President of the International Input-Output Association (IIOA), Honorary President of the Chinese Input-Output Association (CIOA), Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic-American Input-Output Society (SHAIO), director of the European Network for Input-Output Studies (EUNIOS), and serves on the advisory board of the Regional Research Institute (RRI) at West Virginia University in Morgantown.