Timothy Bates

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

Professor Bates is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University and is an expert in minority entrepreneurship in the United States.  Dr. Bates is the author of five books, Race, Self-Employment, and Upward Mobility: An Illusive American Dream; Banking on Black Enterprise: The Potential of Emerging Firms for Revitalizing Urban Economies; Major Studies of Minority Busines: A Bibliographic Review; Political Economy of the Urban Ghetto; and Financing Black Economic Development.  In addition, Professor Bates publishes articles in academic journals such as Small Business Economics, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, Economic Development Quarterly, and the Journal of Business Venturing, among many others.  Dr. Bates also served on the editorial boards of the journals of Small Business Economics, Economic Development Quarterly, Journal of Business Venturing, and the Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship.  Over his long career, Professor Bates has received research grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Joint Center for Political Studies, and the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Additionally, Dr. Bates worked on research contracts with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Chicago Transit Authority, the City of Chicago Department of Law, Port Authority of New York, New Jersey/Regional Alliance for Small Contractors, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the New York State Department of Law as well as serving as a consultant for numerous agencies and organizations, including: the City of Chicago Corporation Counsel, the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, the U.S. General Accounting Office, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Chicago Public Schools, the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination in Public Procurement, for the State of New Jersey, and the Minority Business Development Agency, at the U.S. Department of Commerce, in Washington D.C., among many others. 

Dr. Bates’ past positions include the Professor of Urban Policy and Chair of the Urban Studies department at the New School for Social Research and Professor of Economics at the University of Vermont.  He held short-term appointments at the Minority Entrepreneurship Center, Kenan Institute, 2003-2010 and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, 1999, both at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Bates held Visiting Scholar positions at the UCLA W.E.B Du Bois Center for Afro-American Studies, 1977, the University of Hawaii School of Business 1976, and the University of California, Berkeley School of Business in 1977 and 1980.  Professor Bates was also appointed as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1993-1994, and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, American Statistical Association, 1988.  Professor Bates holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin.