We study the Chow ring of the moduli stack M g,n of prestable curves and define the notion of tautological classes on this stack. We extend formulas for intersection products and functoriality of tautological classes under natural morphisms from the case of the tautological ring of the moduli space M g,n of stable curves. In genus 0, we show that the Chow ring of M 0,n coincides with the tautological ring and give a complete description in terms of (additive) generators and relations. This generalizes earlier results by Keel and Kontsevich-Manin for the spaces of stable curves. Our argument uses the boundary stratification of the moduli stack together with the study of the first higher Chow groups of the strata, in particular providing a new proof of the results of Kontsevich and Manin.6 Note that a priori it is not possible to directly pull back classes in CH * (M g,n ) under the map M g,n (X, β) → M g,n , since this map is in general neither flat nor lci. However, there exists an isomorphismfrom the Chow group of M g,n to its operational Chow group, and operational Chow classes are functorial under arbitrary morphisms. Then, any operational Chow class acts on the Chow group of M g,n (X, β), see Section A.3.