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.

Bartik’s recent work on economic development includes research developing a database on economic development incentive programs around the U.S. He has also developed a simulation model of incentives’ benefits and costs for local residents’ incomes, and how these benefits and costs vary with incentive design, local economic conditions, and how incentives’ budget costs are paid for.