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Shift-Share Designs in Political Science

Peter Kyungtae Park

arXiv 24 Feb 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2603.00135 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Shift-share designs are gaining popularity in political science. This article introduces what shift-share designs are, reviews their application in the literature, synthesizes recent methodological developments, and discusses their potential utility in the field. Although shift-share designs have a long historical use in economics, their causal properties only recently began to be understood. Articles in political science tend to be aware of these developments, but do not fully discuss and test identifying assumptions and sometimes apply the methods incorrectly. Most articles rely on the share exogeneity framework, suggesting that the shifter exogeneity framework is underutilized despite its comparable prevalence in economics. I illustrate shifter exogeneity framework and develop auxiliary theoretical results that are potentially useful in applying the framework in political science settings.

Citation extraction

86
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178
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Fouka, Vasiliki and Tabellini, Marco (2022) Changing In-Group Boundaries: The Effect of Immigration on Race Relations in the United States1.00064100%
2Borusyak, Kirill and Hull, Peter and Jaravel, Xavier (2025) A Practical Guide to Shift-Share Instruments1.00063100%
3Autor, David and Dorn, David and Hanson, Gordon and Majlesi, Kaveh (2020) Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure1.00054100%
4Hahn, Jinyong and Kuersteiner, Guido and Santos, Andres and Willigro… (2024) Overidentification in Shift-Share Designs0.9416383%
5Autor, David and Dorn, David and Hanson, Gordon H (2013) The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States0.90920875%
6Goldsmith-Pinkham, Paul and Sorkin, Isaac and Swift, Henry (2020) Bartik Instruments: What, When, Why, and How0.9098475%
7Adão, Rodrigo and Kolesár, Michal and Morales, Eduardo (2019) Shift-Share Designs: Theory and Inference0.83014557%
8Borusyak, Kirill and Hull, Peter and Jaravel, Xavier (2022) Quasi-Experimental Shift-Share Research Designs0.79420550%
9Card, David (2001) Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration0.73732100%
10Colantone, Italo and Stanig, Piero (2018) The Trade Origins of Economic Nationalism: Import Competition and Voting Behavior in Western Europe0.73732100%

Showing the top 10 of 86 scored citations.