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Meta-Regression Analysis as the Socio-Economics of Economic Research

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Author Info

  • T.D. Stanley

    () (Hendrix College)

  • Chris Doucouliagous

    () (Deakin University)

  • Stephen B. Jarrell

    () (Western Carolina University)

Abstract

Meta-regression analysis (MRA) provides an empirical framework through which to integrate disparate economic research results, filter out likely publication bias, and explain their wide variation using socio-economic and econometric explanatory variables (Stanley and Jarrell, 1989, Stanley, 2001, Doucouliagos, 2005, Stanley, 2005a). In dozens of applications, MRA has found excess variation among reported research findings, some of which is explained by socio-economic variables (e.g., researcher’s gender) and most of which contains publication bias (Card and Krueger, 1995, Stanley, 1998, Stanley and Jarrell, 1998, Ashenfelter et al.,1999, Görg and Strobl, 2001, Stanley, 2001, Doucouliagos and Laroche, 2003, Abreu, de Groot and Florax, 2005, Doucouliagos, 2005, Rose and Stanley, 2005, Stanley, 2005a). Publication bias is itself a socio-economic phenomenon. When researchers’ compensation is based on their publication records, all available research degrees of freedom will be used to increase its probability. MRA can empirically model and test socio-economic theories about economic research. The socio-economics of the academy can explain why excess variation (beyond the classical, random sampling errors that conventional standard errors measure) will likely dominate many areas of empirical economic research, and MRA can explain how. Here, we make two strong claims: socio-economic MRAs, broadly conceived, explain much of the excess variation routinely found in empirical economic research; whereas, any other type of literature review (or summary) is biased.

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File URL: http://www.deakin.edu.au/buslaw/aef/workingpapers/papers/2006_21eco.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Deakin University, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance in its series Economics Series with number 2006_21.

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Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: 13 Nov 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dkn:econwp:eco_2006_21

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Su Wu, 2006. "The Wallis Report and Implications of Bank Mergers for Efficiencies," Economics Series 2006_12, Deakin University, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance.
  2. Tomáš Havránek, 2009. "Rose Effect and the Euro: The Magic is Gone," Working Papers IES 2009/20, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Aug 2009.
  3. Adam, Antonis & Kammas, Pantelis & Lagou, Athina, 2011. "The effect of globalization on capital taxation: What have we learned after 20 years of empirical studies?," MPRA Paper 33382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Wesley, J.D. & Shen, Xuan & Li, Sheng & Wilson, Norbert L.W., 2012. "Agricultural Trade Bias in Exchange Rate Volatility Effect Estimation: An Application of Meta-Regression Analysis," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124870, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

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