More Robust Estimators for Panel Bartik Designs, With An Application to the Effect of Chinese Imports on US Employment
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Series
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Speaker(s)Clement De Chaisemartin (SciencesPo, France and University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), currently on leave))
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FieldEconometrics
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LocationUniversity of Amsterdam, Room E5.22
Amsterdam -
Date and time
May 12, 2023
12:30 - 13:30
Abstract
We show that panel Bartik regressions identify non-convex combinations of location-and-period-specific treatment effects. Thus, those regressions could be biased in the presence of heterogeneous effects. We propose an alternative instrumental-variable correlated-random-coefficient (IV-CRC) estimator, that is more robust to heterogeneous effects. We revisit Autor et al. (2013), who use a panel Bartik regression to estimate the effect of imports from China on US manufacturing employment. Their regression estimates a highly non-convex combination of effects, and our CRC estimator is small and insignificant: without assuming constant effects, one cannot conclude that imports from China negatively affected US manufacturing employment.