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.

T.D. Stanley is Bill and Connie Bowen Odyssey Professor of Economics at Hendrix College, Conway, AR, USA.

Hristos Doucouliagos is Professor in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

1: Introduction 2: Identifying and Coding Meta-Analysis Data 3: Summarizing Meta-Analysis Data 4: Publication Bias and Its Discontents 5: Explaining Economics Research 6: Economic Theory and Meta-Regression Analysis 7: Further Topics in Meta-Regression Analysis 8: Summary and Conclusions