Author Archives: timbartik

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About timbartik

Tim Bartik is a senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a non-profit and non-partisan research organization in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His research specializes in state and local economic development policies and local labor markets.

Can evaluation work politically?

Ezra Klein had an interesting column recently that argued for stronger evaluation as the key to the government making smart public investments while avoiding excessive deficits.  The argument is that rigorous evaluation of government programs is simple common sense, equivalent … Continue reading

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Investing in Kids now ready for shipping!

The Upjohn Institute Press now has both hardback and paperback copies of my book investing in Kids available. You can order online at the Institute’s website.  The paperback goes for $20. A great value for a book of 415 pages! … Continue reading

Posted in Business incentives, Early childhood programs, Economic development, National vs. state vs. local, Timing of benefits | Comments Off on Investing in Kids now ready for shipping!

President Obama and early childhood programs

The invaluable blog EarlyStories, written by Liz Willen and Sarah Garland at The Hechinger Report, links to a report from the “Obameter” of the PolitiFact project of the St. Petersburg Times. This project seeks to rate whether various campaign promises of … Continue reading

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If public investment in pre-k is needed, who should be doing the investing?

Ezra Klein has posted a nice column that summarizes some long-term issues facing the U.S.  The essence of his argument is that in addition to closing the budget deficit, we need to make additional productive investments, and to identify such … Continue reading

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Pre-k quality and “process quality”

What ultimately matters to preschool quality is what goes on in the classroom, between teacher and child.  This makes intuitive sense, and is also backed by research. Several studies indicate that preschool achievement gains are higher if more classroom time … Continue reading

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Pre-k quality and class size

One feature of pre-k programs that can “easily” be changed by public policy is class size.  When I say class size can be changed “easily”, I mean that it can be changed with a simple to implement change in law … Continue reading

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Pre-k quality and teacher quality

Many aspects of pre-k programs affect their quality. “Quality” in turn affects the magnitude of economic development benefits for a state or local economy. I’ll be exploring this important issue of pre-k quality in several blog posts. One of the … Continue reading

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How we can improve the local productivity of business incentives

Although this blog (and my book, Investing in Kids) is mainly concerned with how early childhood programs can provide economic development benefits, I also consider the role of business incentives in economic development. Business incentives are tax breaks or services … Continue reading

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Film incentives: why are they particularly problematic as economic development incentives?

In a recent blog post, Matt Yglesias casts a skeptical eye on incentives for film production in a particular state or local economy.  Many states offer huge incentives for films to be made in the state, on the grounds that … Continue reading

Posted in Business incentives, Economic development, Incentive design issues, National vs. state vs. local | 1 Comment

What might early childhood education do for Chicago?

In the New York Times article by James Warren on Professor James Heckman’s ideas on early childhood education, Mr. Warren suggests that Professor Heckman’s ideas “might have benefited mayoral candidates concerned about Chicago’s public schools performance”. Warren goes on to … Continue reading

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