Meta-Regression Analysis

This volume celebrates the innovative and rapidly growing area of economic research known as meta-regression analysis (MRA).

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• Shows how MRA enables researchers to make sense of disparate economic findings on the same subject.
  
• Develops methods that help researchers to distinguish publication selection from genuine empirical effect.
  
• Applies these methods to topical areas of economic research including: the effect of immigration on wages, minimum wage on unemployment, and gender on salaries.
  
• Helps to bridge the gulf between economic theory and practice.
  
• Written to be accessible to readers with a basic background in empirical economics.

This volume celebrates the innovative and rapidly growing area of economic research known as meta-regression analysis (MRA), which enables researchers to make sense of the disparate economic findings in an area of empirical research, using the same set of statistical tools found in that research.

The volume develops methods which help researchers to distinguish publication selection from genuine empirical effect. It then applies these methods to topical areas of economic research including: the effect of immigration on wages, the effect of freedom on economic growth, minimum wage on unemployment, gender on salaries, unions on productivity, monetary unions on trade, and so on. In this way, the book helps to bridge the gulf between economic theory and practice.

The surveys are written to be accessible to readers with a basic background in empirical economics and will be a valuable resource for those who want to keep abreast of empirical findings in a wide range of areas and to appreciate how they are reached.

Colin Roberts is Director of Studies and Lecturer in Economics at the University of Edinburgh.

Tom D. Stanley is Professor of Economics at Hendrix College.