Meta-Regression Analysis: A Quantitative Method of Literature Surveys

Pedagogically, literature reviews are instrumental. They summarize the large literature written on a particular topic, give coherence to the complex, often disparate, views expressed about an issue, and serve as a springboard for new ideas. However, literature surveys rarely establish anything approximating unanimous consensus. Ironically, this is just as true for the empirical economic literature. To harmonize this dissonance, we offer a quantitative methodology for reviewing the empirical economic literature. Meta-regression analysis (MRA) is the regression analysis of regression analyses. MRA tends to objectify the review process. It studies the processes that produce empirical economic results as though they were any other social scientific phenomenon. MRA provides a framework for replication and offers a sensitivity analysis for model specification. In this brief essay, we propose an new method of reviewing economic literature, MRA, and discuss its potential. Copyright 1989 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd

[1]  A. D. Ritchie.  The Open Society and its Enemies , 1946, Nature.

[2]  J. Farley,et al.  How Advertising Affects Sales: Meta-Analysis of Econometric Results , 1984 .

[3]  Tommy Stanley,et al.  Forecasting from fallible data: Correcting prediction bias with stein-rule least squares , 1988 .

[4]  Gene V. Glass,et al.  The benefits of psychotherapy , 1980 .

[5]  R. Rosenthal.  Meta-analytic procedures for social research , 1984 .

[6]  A. Eagly,et al.  Sex of researchers and sex-typed communications as determinants of sex differences in influenceability: A meta-analysis of social influence studies , 1981 .

[7]  Gilbert A. Churchill,et al.  Research Design Effects on the Reliability of Rating Scales: A Meta-Analysis , 1984 .

[8]  M. Blaug.  The methodology of economics, or, How economists explain , 1980 .

[9]  K. Popper.  Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach , 1972 .

[10]  T. Stanley.  Stein-rule least squares estimation: A heuristic for fallible data , 1986 .

[11]  G. Glass.  9: Integrating Findings: The Meta-Analysis of Research , 1977 .

[12]  D. Shapiro,et al.  Meta-analysis of comparative therapy outcome studies: a replication and refinement. , 1982, Psychological bulletin.

[13]  Donald R. Lehmann,et al.  Patterns in Parameters of Buyer Behavior Models: Generalizing from Sparse Replication , 1982 .

[14]  On relaxing the maximization postulate , 1985 .

[15]  H. Leonard,et al.  Reporting the Fragility of Regression Estimates , 1983 .

[16]  B. Mccallum.  Rational Expectations and the Natural Rate Hypothesis: Some Consistent Estimates , 1976 .

[17]  G. Glass,et al.  Meta-analysis in social research , 1981 .

[18]  G. Glass.  Primary, Secondary, and Meta-Analysis of Research1 , 1976 .

[19]  M. Kendall.  Statistical Methods for Research Workers , 1937, Nature.

[20]  M. Friedman,et al.  Theory of the Consumption Function , 1957 .

[21]  James H. Stock,et al.  A Reexamination of Friedman's Consumption Puzzle , 1988 .

[22]  Michael J. Ryan,et al.  Generalizing from "Imperfect" Replication , 1981 .

[23]  T. Stanley.  Recursive economic knowledge: Hierarchy, maximization and behavioral economics , 1986 .

[24]  Gilbert A. Churchill,et al.  Research Design Effects on the Reliability of Rating Scales: A Meta-Analysis: , 1984 .

[25]  R. Swinburne.  OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE: AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH , 1973 .

[26]  Donald B. Rubin,et al.  Interpersonal expectancy effects: the first 345 studies , 1978, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[27]  K. Pearson.  ON A METHOD OF DETERMINING WHETHER A SAMPLE OF SIZE n SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN DRAWN FROM A PARENT POPULATION HAVING A KNOWN PROBABILITY INTEGRAL HAS PROBABLY BEEN DRAWN AT RANDOM , 1933 .

[28]  L. Hedges.  Distribution Theory for Glass's Estimator of Effect size and Related Estimators , 1981 .

[29]  Jerry G. Thursby,et al.  Replication in Empirical Economics: The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking Project , 1986 .

[30]  Union Relative Wage Effects: A Survey , 1986 .

[31]  B. Efron.  Bootstrap Methods: Another Look at the Jackknife , 1979 .