Compare methods

	Shift-Share Analysis	Location Quotient
Field	Economics	Economics
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1960	1960
Originator	Edgar S. Dunn (Daniel Creamer credited with early use)	Developed in regional science; codified by Walter Isard
Type	Descriptive decomposition of regional growth	Descriptive index of relative regional concentration
Seminal source	Dunn, E. S. (1960). A statistical and analytical technique for regional analysis. Papers of the Regional Science Association, 6(1), 97–112.	Isard, W. (1960). Methods of Regional Analysis: An Introduction to Regional Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262090032
Aliases	Shift-Share Decomposition, SSA, Esteban-Marquillas Shift-Share, Regional Shift-Share	LQ, Coefficient of Localization, Regional Specialization Ratio
Related	3	3
Summary	Shift-share analysis is a descriptive technique that decomposes the change in a regional variable — most often sectoral employment — into three additive components: the part attributable to overall national growth, the part attributable to the region's industry mix, and the part attributable to the region's own competitive performance. Formalized by Edgar Dunn in 1960, it answers whether a region grew because the national economy grew, because it specializes in fast-growing industries, or because its industries outperformed (or underperformed) their national counterparts.	The location quotient (LQ) is a simple descriptive index that measures how concentrated an industry is in a region relative to a larger reference area, usually the nation. It is the ratio of the industry's share of local employment (or output) to its share of national employment. An LQ above one means the region is more specialized in that industry than the nation as a whole; an LQ below one means it is under-represented.