Investing in Kids: Early Childhood Programs and Local Economic Development

The Author

389 The Author Timothy J. Bartik is a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. His research focuses on state and local economic development and local labor markets, including research in the following areas: evaluating economic development programs, the effects of taxes and public services on economic development, the benefits and costs of local economic development, and alternative policies for increasing labor demand for the poor. Bartik is recognized as a leading scholar on state and local economic development policies in the United States. His 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 coeditor of Economic Development Quarterly, the only journal focused on local economic development in the United States, and also serves on the editorial board of other regional economics journals. National dialogues concerning the recent economic recession and recovery have included the policy option of job creation tax credits. Such job creation programs were analyzed and proposed in Bartik’s 2001 book Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help?, published by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Upjohn Institute. Bartik’s work has been extensively cited in the ongoing debate during 2009 and 2010 over job creation policies by administration officials, Congress, various Washington think tanks, and the media. Bartik’s Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help? in 2001 was named a “Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics” by Princeton University’s Industrial Relations Section. Other recent research includes the following works: “Bringing Jobs to People: How Federal Policy Can Target Job Creation for Economically DistressedAreas,” Washington, D.C., Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution, 2010; “The Revitalization of Older Industrial Cities,” Growth and Change, 2009; “The Job Creation Tax Credit,” Washington, D.C., Economic Policy Institute, 2009 (with John Bishop); “‘Eds and Meds’ and Metropolitan Economic Development,” in Urban and Regional Policy and Its Effects, Howard Wial, Hal Wolman, and Margery Turner, editors, Washington, DC, Brookings Institution, 2008 (with George Erickcek); and A Future of Good Jobs? America’s Challenge in the Global Economy, coedited with Susan Houseman, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Upjohn Institute, 2008. 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. From 2000 to 2008, Bartik served on the Kalamazoo School Board. ...