The production of shale gas depends not only on shale resources and capital investment but also on having a flexible and stable policy environment. This paper examines whether and how partisan ideology affects the extraction of shale gas. We use panel fixed effects as well as the system–generalized method of moments approach with quarterly panel data from 15 US states over the period 2007−2016. We consider not only the political ideology of the state governor but also the state legislature’s influence on the governor, control over the governorship and the legislature by the same party, the reelection of an incumbent government, and turnover in the political party in power. The results indicate that because the right-leaning party is more likely to support shale gas development, when a member of that party heads the state government, shale gas production performance is higher than when the left-leaning party is in power. Therefore, the production of shale gas rises with a turnover in political control from left to right, reelection of a right-leaning incumbent, and more right-leaning power in the state legislature. We believe our results shed light on the role of partisan ideology in shale gas production, which has implications for environmental regulations.

页岩气的生产不仅取决于页岩资源和资金投入，还取决于灵活稳定的政策环境。本文考察了党派意识形态是否以及如何影响页岩气的开采。我们使用面板固定效应以及系统广义矩量法对 2007-2016 年期间美国 15 个州的季度面板数据。我们不仅考虑州长的政治意识形态，还考虑州立法机构对州长的影响、同一政党对州长和立法机构的控制、现任政府的连任以及执政政党的更替。结果表明，由于右倾党更有可能支持页岩气开发，当该党的成员担任州政府首脑时，页岩气生产业绩高于左倾党执政时。因此，页岩气的产量随着政治控制权从左到右的更替、右倾现任者的连任以及州议会中右倾权力的增加而上升。我们相信我们的结果揭示了党派意识形态在页岩气生产中的作用，这对环境法规有影响。