Timothy Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik is an American economist who specializes in regional economics, public finance, urban economics, labor economics, and labor demand policies.

He is a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Dr. Bartik’s research focuses on state and local economic development and local labor markets.

This includes research on how early childhood programs affect local economies, and on job-creation programs.

Bartik’s 1991 book, Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies? is widely cited as an important and influential review of the evidence on how local policies affect economic development.

Bartik is co-editor of Economic Development Quarterly, the only journal focused on local economic development in the United States.

National debates over the recent recession have included the policy option of job creation tax credits.

Such job creation programs were proposed in Bartik’s 2001 book, Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help?

Bartik’s work was extensively cited in the debate during 2009 and 2010 over job creation policies.

Bartik’s most recent book was published in January 2011: Investing in Kids: Early Childhood Programs and Local Economic Development.

According to Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman, “Tim Bartik has written a thoughtful book on the value of a local approach to financing and creating early interventions to foster child development.”

Bartik received both his PhD and his MS in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1982.

He earned a BA from Yale University in political philosophy in 1975.

Prior to joining the Upjohn Institute in 1989, he was an assistant professor of economics at Vanderbilt University.