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Assistant Professor of Economics
Rutgers University
Department of Economics
New Jersey Hall
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1248
Email: jacob.bastian@rutgers.edu Phone: 848.932.8652 Rutgers Department Website
Updated 2026 Research Statement
Short Bio:
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Rutgers University, an NBER Faculty Research Fellow, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. I visited UC Berkeley in Fall 2025 as a Stone Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics. I served as a Senior Economist in the Biden White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2023-2024. I was a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Industrial Relations Section during 2022-2023.
My research focuses on how public policy can reduce poverty, increase economic opportunity, and encourage egalitarian social attitudes, while also identifying unintended consequences. Much of my current research looks at the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Child Tax Credit (CTC), and early childhood policy. My research shows that the EITC helped lead to the rise of working mothers in the 1970s, improved the education and employment outcomes of children of EITC recipients, changed social attitudes about the role of women in society, had positive effects on marriage and fertility, decreased overall time spent between mothers and children (though not quality time devoted to child investment), has larger effects in rural and economically distressed areas, and helps mothers move out of rural and economically distressed areas to places with more economic opportunity. Increased working also led these mothers to become more politically conservative. In newer work, I show that universal pre-K raises employment and earnings by enough that tax revenue may cover its cost, and I am building the first long-run panel of state childcare regulations to study how policy shapes the supply of affordable, high-quality childcare. A set of new projects evaluates Puerto Rico's recent large EITC and CTC expansions, which raised employment and income and improved poverty, housing, and health outcomes for families there.
My research on the Child Tax Credit (CTC) examines how expanding the credit—particularly in ways that benefit both working and non-working low-income families—can effectively reduce child poverty. I find that complementing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) with a more inclusive CTC balances multiple goals: supporting parental employment, improving child outcomes, and managing fiscal costs. A hybrid design that partially rewards work while ensuring a baseline benefit for all low-income children offers a pragmatic, evidence-based path forward.
I’ve received grants from Arnold Ventures, Smith Richardson Foundation, Equitable Growth, Russell Sage Foundation, and Upjohn Institute to continue my research. My doctoral dissertation was chosen as a winner of the 2017 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations in Government Finance and Taxation by the National Tax Association.
My research has been featured as the AEA Chart of the Week, in the New York Times (and in this NYT piece), CNBC, The Economist, Brookings Institution, Tax Policy Center, VoxEU, Marginal Revolution, Mother Jones, National Review, and National Affairs.
I am available for media interviews; please reach out by email.
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