Overidentification in Shift-Share Designs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hahn, Jinyong, Kuersteiner, Guido, Santos, Andres, Willigrod, Wavid
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hahn, Jinyong
Kuersteiner, Guido
Santos, Andres
Willigrod, Wavid
author_facet Hahn, Jinyong
Kuersteiner, Guido
Santos, Andres
Willigrod, Wavid
contents This paper studies the testability of identifying restrictions commonly employed to assign a causal interpretation to two stage least squares (TSLS) estimators based on Bartik instruments. For homogeneous effects models applied to short panels, our analysis yields testable implications previously noted in the literature for the two major available identification strategies. We propose overidentification tests for these restrictions that remain valid in high dimensional regimes and are robust to heteroskedasticity and clustering. We further show that homogeneous effect models in short panels, and their corresponding overidentification tests, are of central importance by establishing that: (i) In heterogenous effects models, interpreting TSLS as a positively weighted average of treatment effects can impose implausible assumptions on the distribution of the data; and (ii) Alternative identifying strategies relying on long panels can prove uninformative in short panel applications. We highlight the empirical relevance of our results by examining the viability of Bartik instruments for identifying the effect of rising Chinese import competition on US local labor markets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_17049
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Overidentification in Shift-Share Designs
Hahn, Jinyong
Kuersteiner, Guido
Santos, Andres
Willigrod, Wavid
Econometrics
This paper studies the testability of identifying restrictions commonly employed to assign a causal interpretation to two stage least squares (TSLS) estimators based on Bartik instruments. For homogeneous effects models applied to short panels, our analysis yields testable implications previously noted in the literature for the two major available identification strategies. We propose overidentification tests for these restrictions that remain valid in high dimensional regimes and are robust to heteroskedasticity and clustering. We further show that homogeneous effect models in short panels, and their corresponding overidentification tests, are of central importance by establishing that: (i) In heterogenous effects models, interpreting TSLS as a positively weighted average of treatment effects can impose implausible assumptions on the distribution of the data; and (ii) Alternative identifying strategies relying on long panels can prove uninformative in short panel applications. We highlight the empirical relevance of our results by examining the viability of Bartik instruments for identifying the effect of rising Chinese import competition on US local labor markets.
title Overidentification in Shift-Share Designs
topic Econometrics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17049