Timothy J. 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.
He developed a method of isolating local labor demand changes that is referred to as the Bartik instrument. This measure averages national employment growth across industries using local industry employment shares as weights to produce a measure of local labor demand that is unrelated to changes in local labor supply. This is a key tool in macroeconomic analysis.

WWW upjohn.org/about-us/who-w...

Biography

Bartik earned a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1975 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982.
Prior to joining the Upjohn Institute in 1989, Bartik was assistant professor of economics at Vanderbilt University, and legislative assistant for housing and urban policy for U.S. Senator Donald W. Riegle Jr..
Bartik is also the son of groundbreaking computer programmer Jean Bartik.

Research

Bartik's research includes work in the following areas:

wage subsidies and public service jobs to promote job creation
state and local economic development policy
early childhood programs as a means of economic development.

Bartik is also the creator of the, a free online tool that offers the most comprehensive information available to date on incentives to business for economic development provided by state and local governments in the United States. Accompanying the database is a report that explains how the database is constructed while offering preliminary analyses that begin to answer questions about how incentives vary.

Publications

Books

. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2019..
. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2014..
. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2011..
. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2008..
. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2001..
. Kalamazoo, Mich.: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1991..

Other

Bartik has contributed over 30 chapters to various books, published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Growth & Change, Economic Development Quarterly, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Urban Economics, and Challenge. He has also authored numerous, reports, and presentations and delivered testimony to several legislative bodies.

Other activities

National Advisory Board, Center on Local, State, and Urban Affairs, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
Research affiliate, Rural Poverty Research Center, University of Missouri and Oregon State University
Research affiliate,, University of Michigan
Co-editor, Economic Development Quarterly
School Board, Kalamazoo Public Schools
Editorial Board, Growth and Change
Editorial Board, Regional Science Review
Board of Associate Editors, Journal of Regional Science
Editorial Board, ''Journal of Regional Studies''