Jacobi algebroids, that is graded Lie brackets on the Grassmann algebra
associated with a vector bundle which satisfy a property similar to that of the
Jacobi brackets, are introduced. They turn out to be equivalent to generalized
Lie algebroids in the sense of Iglesias and Marrero and can be viewed also as
odd Jacobi brackets on the supermanifolds associated with the vector bundles.
Jacobi bialgebroids are defined in the same manner. A lifting procedure of
elements of this Grassmann algebra to multivector fields on the total space of
the vector bundle which preserves the corresponding brackets is developed. This
gives the possibility of associating canonically a Lie algebroid with any local
Lie algebra in the sense of Kirillov.Comment: 20 page