Quasi-Experimental Shift-share Research Designs

Citation:

Borusyak K, Hull P, Jaravel X. Quasi-Experimental Shift-share Research Designs. Working Paper.

Abstract:

Many studies use shift-share (or “Bartik”) instruments, which average a set of shocks with exposure share weights. We provide a new econometric framework for such designs in which identification follows from the quasi-random assignment of shocks, allowing exposure shares to be endogenous. This framework is centered around a numerical equivalence: conventional shift-share instrumental variable (SSIV) regression coefficients are equivalently obtained from a transformed regression where the shocks are used directly as an instrument. This equivalence implies a shock-level translation of the SSIV exclusion restriction, which holds when shocks are as-good-as-randomly assigned and large in number, with sufficient dispersion in their average exposure. We discuss and illustrate several practical insights delivered by this framework.

Draft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9pu7rfwhxa49s/bhj_bartik_12052019.pdf?raw=1
Replication archive: https://github.com/borusyak/shift-share
The ssaggregate Stata command is available from ssc

 

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Revision requested from the Review of Economic Studies.
Last updated on 12/05/2019