Meta-Regression Analysis in Economics and Business is the first text devoted to the meta-regression analysis (MRA) of economics and business research.

The purpose of this book is to introduce novice researchers to the tools of meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis and to summarize the state of the art for existing practitioners. Meta-regression analysis addresses the rising "Tower of Babel" that current economics and business research has become. Meta-analysis is the statistical analysis of previously published, or reported, research findings on a given hypothesis, empirical effect, phenomenon, or policy intervention. It is a systematic review of all the relevant scientific knowledge on a specific subject and is an essential part of the evidence-based practice movement in medicine, education and the social sciences. However, research in economics and business is often fundamentally different from what is found in the sciences and thereby requires different methods for its synthesis—meta-regression analysis. This book develops, summarizes, and applies these meta-analytic methods.

Meta-analysis is a formal synthesis of results and findings of scientific studies, which can assist in gaining new insights, explaining differences between results of similar studies, or determine useful directions of research. In this book we focus on the use of meta-analysis in environmental economics and related fields of study. The first part of the book covers the overall meta-approach methodology for social sciences and economics in particular. This is followed by technical and non-technical discussions of statistical and rough-set techniques for analysis. At appropriate places this is supplemented with reviews of applications in environmental economics and related fields. In the second part of the book a number of case studies show different aspects of the application of meta-analysis. The research areas considered include, among others, tourism multipliers, air pollution valuation, risk and value of life, pesticide price policy, travel time savings, and transport externality and policy issues. The benefits of the appropriate application of meta-analysis in environmental economics are a better use of existing information and knowledge, removal of some of the subjectivity from analysis and forecasting, and greater clarity as to where future efforts in environmental economic analysis can most gainfully be deployed.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to performing meta-analysis using the statistical software R. It is intended for quantitative researchers and students in the medical and social sciences who wish to learn how to perform meta-analysis with R. As such, the book introduces the key concepts and models used in meta-analysis. It also includes chapters on the following advanced topics: publication bias and small study effects; missing data; multivariate meta-analysis, network meta-analysis; and meta-analysis of diagnostic studies.

Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff’s now classic 1984 book What Do Unions Do? stimulated an enormous theoretical and empirical literature on the economic impact of trade unions. Trade unions continue to be a significant feature of many labor markets, particularly in developing countries, and issues of labor market regulations and labor institutions remain critically important to researchers and policy makers. The relations between unions and management can range between cooperation and conflict; unions have powerful offsetting wage and non-wage effects that economists and other social scientists have long debated. Do the benefits of unionism exceed the costs to the economy and society writ large, or do the costs exceed the benefits? The Economics of Trade Unions offers the first comprehensive review, analysis and evaluation of the empirical literature on the microeconomic effects of trade unions using the tools of meta-regression analysis to identify and quantify the economic impact of trade unions, as well as to correct research design faults, the effects of selection bias and model misspecification. This volume makes use of a unique dataset of hundreds of empirical studies and their reported estimates of the microeconomic impact of trade unions. Written by three authors who have been at the forefront of this research field (including the co-author of the original volume, What Do Unions Do?), this book offers an overview of a subject that is of huge importance to scholars of labor economics, industrial and employee relations, and human resource management, as well as those with an interest in meta-analysis.

Offering pragmatic guidance for planning and conducting a meta-analytic review, this book is written in an engaging, nontechnical style that makes it ideal for graduate course use or self-study. The author shows how to identify questions that can be answered using meta-analysis, retrieve both published and unpublished studies, create a coding manual, use traditional and unique effect size indices, and write a meta-analytic review. An ongoing example illustrates meta-analytic techniques. In addition to the fundamentals, the book discusses more advanced topics, such as artifact correction, random- and mixed-effects models, structural equation representations, and multivariate procedures. User-friendly features include annotated equations; discussions of alternative approaches; and "Practical Matters" sections that give advice on topics not often discussed in other books, such as linking meta-analytic results with theory and the utility of meta-analysis software programs. ÿ

This collection provides detailed descriptions of both standard and advanced meta-analytic methods and their implementation in Stata. Readers will gain access to the statistical methods behind the rapid increase in the number of meta-analyses reported in the social science and medical literature. The book shows how to conduct and interpret meta-analyses as well as produce highly flexible graphical displays. Using meta-regression, it examines reasons for between-study variability in effect estimates. The book also employs advanced methods for the meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies, dose-response meta-analysis, meta-analysis with missing data, and multivariate meta-analysis.