wheat from chaff meta analysis as quantitative literature review abstract this paper presents and develops a quantitative method of literature reviewing and evaluating empirical research meta regression analysis or mra economics is theory driven yet we must learn empirically if economics is to advance mra offers a more objective statistical method to summarize our empirical knowledge and to explain the wide study to study variation in economic research mra is used to assess the evidence for ricardian equivalence and its findings are contrasted to those of conventional narrative review furthermore mra establishes a platform from which to distinguish genuine empirical effect from the exploitable specification error that infests applied econometrics

does financial education impact financial literacy and financial behavior and if so when in a meta analysis of 126 impact evaluation studies we find that financial education significantly impacts financial behavior and to an even larger extent financial literacy these results also hold for the subsample of randomized experiments rcts however intervention impacts are highly heterogeneous financial education is less effective for low income clients as well as in low and lower middle income economies specific behaviors such as the handling of debt are more difficult to influence and mandatory financial education tentatively appears to be less effective thus intervention success depends crucially on increasing education intensity and offering financial education at a teachable moment

fdi and taxation a meta study despite the continuing political interest in the usefulness of tax competition and tax coordination as well as the wealth of theoretical analyses it still remains open whether or when tax competition is harmful moreover the influence of tax differentials on multinationals decisions is still insufficiently analyzed thus economists have increasingly resorted to empirical analysis in order to gain insights on the elasticity of fdi with respect to company taxation as a result the empirical literature on taxation and international capital flows has grown to a similar abundance during the last 25 years as the respective theoretical literature its heterogeneity leads to a rising need for concise reviews on the existing empirical evidence in this paper we extend former meta analyses on fdi and taxation in three ways first we add the most recent publications unconsidered in meta analyses up to date second we apply a different methodology by using a broad set of meta regression estimators and explicitly discuss which one is most suitable for application to our meta data third we address some important issues in research on fdi and taxation to the clarification of which meta analysis can make valuable contributions these issues are mainly the influence of variables which might moderate effects of tax differentials e g public spending the implications of using aggregate fdi data as opposed to firm level information on measured tax effects the implications of bilateral effective tax rates and the possible presence of publication bias in primary research

factors explaining local privatization a meta regression analysis this paper aims at explaining the differences in the results of empirical studies of motivations for local privatization by undertaking a meta regression our results suggest that fiscal constraints and interest groups were especially relevant in the early studies of the us which considered several services further studies that focus on one service capture the influence of scale economies more accurately finally our results show that small towns are more affected by fiscal and political factors while ideology plays a major role for european and large cities thus no clear conclusions emerge from this literature because the findings of each study are sensitive to its characteristics

closing the regional equity capital gap the role of informal venture capital there is evidence from a number of countries that small firms encounter a shortage of long term investment finance particularly at start up and initial growth expansion of the institutional venture capital industry has done little to fill this equity gap on account of its preference for making large investments in established companies and management leveraged buyouts moreover the supply of venture capital exhibits a high level of spatial concentration initiatives by state provincial and local governments most notably in economically lagging regions to increase the supply of risk capital for start ups and early stage businesses have at best provided a very partial and often costly solution a more appropriate approach to increasing the supply of start up and early stage finance is to facilitate the more efficient operation of theinformal venture capital market informal investors or business angels are private investors who provide risk capital directly to new and growing businesses in which they have no family connection most business angels are unable to find sufficient investment opportunities and so have substantial uncommitted funds available there is also considerable scope for expanding the population of business angels the most cost effective means of closing the equity gap is therefore for the public sector to underwrite the operating costs of business introduction services whose objective is to overcome the two main sources of inefficiency in the informal venture capital market namely the invisibility of business angels and the high search costs of angels seeking investment opportunities and entrepreneurs seeking investors by the provision of a channel of communication between informal investors and entrepreneurs seeking finance

income generating effects of biofuel policies a meta analysis of the cge literature abstract while the production of biofuels has expanded in recent years findings in the literature on its impact on economic growth and development remain contradictory this paper presents a meta analysis of computable general equilibrium cge studies published between 2006 and 2017 on the effect of biofuel production on economic development worldwide using 30 cge studies we found that biofuel supportive policies generated significant impacts on gdp and household incomes cge studies included in our database reported an average 0 25 percentage point increase in gdp and a 0 49 percentage point increase in household incomes we also found that results were driven by several key features of the cge studies included in our database we investigated features such as biofuel type geographic area and characteristics of the cge models employed we found that biofuel expansion has heterogeneous effects in developed versus emerging countries simulations on longer time periods and in multi country studies led to results that indicate higher impacts of biofuel expansion on gdp growth and household incomes moreover simulations with an increase in agricultural productivity indicate positive welfare impact gains unlike simulations with land expansion lastly we found that biodiesel development leads to higher welfare impact gains than that of bioethanol

aid and growth what meta analysis reveals abstract recent literature in the meta analysis category where results from a range of studies are brought together throws doubt on the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth and development this article assesses what meta analysis has to contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of foreign aid in terms of growth impact we re examine key hypotheses and find that the effect of aid on growth is positive and statistically significant this significant effect is genuine and not an artefact of publication selection we also show why our results differ from those published elsewhere

what have we learned since hotelling s letter a meta analysis abstract this paper reports the results of a meta analysis of the estimates of the price elasticity of demand for recreation sites using the travel cost method by using econometric methods to summarize empirical literature meta analysis assists in identifying research conclusions despite the non experimental nature of most empirical research in economics in this application the results suggest that modeling decisions based on theory as well as those relying on fitting criteria were important influences to the estimated price elasticities across studies

financial development and economic growth a meta analysis we analyze 1334 estimates from 67 studies that examine the effect of financial development on economic growth taken together the studies imply a positive and statistically significant effect but the individual estimates vary widely we find that both research design and heterogeneity in the underlying effect play a role in explaining the differences in results studies that do not address endogeneity tend to overstate the effect of finance on growth while the effect seems to be weaker in less developed countries the effect decreases worldwide after the 1980s our results also suggest that stock markets support faster economic growth than other financial intermediaries

reassessing the relationships between private equity investors and their portfolio companies the scope and purpose of this special issue is to reassess the relationships between private equity pe investors and their portfolio companies in the light of the need for venture capital private equity vc pe firms to adapt their strategies for value creation in the light of the recent financial crisis we particularly focus upon vc pe characteristics that differently contribute to portfolio firm performance the papers presented in this special issue capture this aim in various ways reflecting the heterogeneity of vc pe investors and the firms in which they invest we begin this introductory paper by providing a brief overview of each paper s contribution we articulate themes for an agenda for future research relating to the heterogeneity of investor types and the contexts in which they invest

evaluating the evidence on union employment and wages using current population survey data for the years 1973 86 this study tests the hypothesis that the steep decline of union employment shares since 1973 is related to increases in union wages relative to nonunion wages the authors show that although the aggregate union wage premium has changed little since 1973 some industry specific premiums have risen substantially and the industries with the rising premiums are those experiencing declines in union employment shares the increase in the premium explains from 21 to 64 of the decline in union shares depending on the equation specification the paper also presents a detailed set of union wage premiums and employment shares for the sample period

are women really more risk averse than men a re analysis of the literature using expanded methods while a substantial literature in economics and finance has concluded that women are more risk averse than men this conclusion merits investigation after briefly clarifying the difference between making generalizations about groups on the one hand and making valid inferences from samples on the other this essay suggests improvements to how economists communicate our research results supplementing findings of statistical significance with quantitative measures of both substantive difference cohen s d a measure in common use in non economics literatures and of substantive overlap the index of similarity newly proposed here adds important nuance to the discussion of sex differences these measures are computed from the data on men women and risk used in 35 scholarly works from economics finance and decision science the results are considerably more mixed and overlapping than would commonly be inferred from the broad claims made in the literature with standardized differences in means mostly amounting to considerably less than one standard deviation and the degree of overlap between male and female distributions generally exceeding 80 in addition studies that look at contextual influences suggest that these contribute importantly to observations of differences both between and within the sexes

a meta analysis of the export growth hypothesis abstract meta analysis is performed on a sample of seventy six studies that have empirically gauged the nexus between exports and economic growth the results show that studies that use aggregate exports report lower t ratios but studies that use oil and manufactured exports report higher t ratios the study also documents the existence of publication bias in the literature

can training and employment subsidies combat european unemployment active policy evaluation problems methods and results european countries with poorly performing labour markets and labour market institutions conducive to high unemployment also feature considerable expenditures on active labour market policy and such policies are emphasized by the european union s employment strategy however the practice of these programmes evaluation is much less well developed in europe than in the united states we outline key issues facing such evaluation and offer a review and formal assessment of european evaluation studies over the last three decades we find that programme effects are very heterogeneous across types of interventions and target groups that training and job search assistance can be effective and that the young among the unemployed are typically difficult to assist jochen kluve and christoph m schmidt

conflicts between entrepreneurs and investors the impact of perceived unethical behavior this paper examines the impact of perceived unethical behavior by entrepreneurs angel investors and venture capitalists on their conflict process for this purpose we use an embedded case study design to provide a diversity of perspectives on the topic at hand from the eye of the beholder i e investor entrepreneur or both 11 conflict situations were analyzed for any perceived unethical behavior based on findings from within and cross case analysis we propose that perceived unethical behavior among venture partners triggers conflicts between them through increased fault attribution or blaming further we propose that perceived unethical behavior affects venture partners choice of conflict management strategy and increases the likelihood of conflict escalation and of conflict having a negative partnership outcome such as failure or another form of involuntary exit as such this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing calls for more research on the darker sides of investor investee relationships

the last word on the wage curve abstract since 1990 there has been extensive international research on the responsiveness of wages of individuals to changing local labour market conditions for many countries an inverse relationship between wages and local unemployment rates has been found in their book the wage curve blanchflower and oswald argued that the unemployment elasticity of pay is around 0 1 in most countries in a 1995 literature survey card referred to this striking empirical regularity as being close to an empirical law of economics nonetheless reported elasticities do vary even excluding outliers between about 0 5 and 0 1 there is also considerable heterogeneity among wage curve studies in terms of data and model specification this paper carries out meta analytic techniques on a sample of 208 elasticities derived from the literature to uncover the reasons for the differences in empirical results across studies several causes of variation are identified there is also clear evidence of downward publication bias in addition many reported t statistics are biased upwards due to the use of aggregate unemployment rates a maximum likelihood method and a trimming procedure are used to correct for these biases both methods give similar results for our sample an unbiased estimate of the wage curve elasticity at the means of study characteristics is about 0 07

testing ricardian equivalence a reconsideration empirical evidence on the determinants of private consumption in 52 countries over the period 1979 88 indicates that in contrast to the ricardian equivalence proposition a significant relationship exists between consumption and the variable the ratio of tax revenue to changes in government debt which measures the extent of substituting debt for tax financing the results obtained from estimating euler equations for the representative individual s stochastic dynamic optimization problem are favourable to the proposition that the choice between current taxation and debt issuance to finance a given government expenditure stream is relevant to the determination of the level of aggregate demand

a meta analysis of the international gender wage gap abstract since the early 1970s a number of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity this meta study provides a new quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage differentials as it concerns not only differences in methodology data and time periods but also different countries we place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators the results show that data restrictions i e the limitation of the analysis to new entrants never marrieds or one narrow occupation only have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap moreover we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation like the frequent use of potential experience has on the calculated gender wage gap over time raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially however most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females

a meta analysis of fdi and productivity spillovers in developing countries markdownabstractthis meta analysis reviews the intrasector heterogeneity of productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in 31 developing countries through a larger more comprehensive data set we investigate how the inconsistencies in the reported spillover findings are affected by publication bias characteristics of the data estimation techniques and empirical specification analyzing 1450 spillover estimates from 69 empirical studies published in 1986 2013 our findings suggest that reported fdi spillover estimates are affected by publication bias in combination with model misspecification of the primary studies the bias overstates the genuine underlying meta effect but the meta effect remains economically and statistically significant our results emphasize that spillovers and their sign largely depend systematically on specification characteristics of the primary studies and publication bias publication bias is not caused by best practice choices future research needs to cover more developing countries and to investigate not only whether spillovers occur but also to explore inside the black box of how spillovers actually emerge

activating unemployed workers works experimental evidence from denmark abstract in a field experiment in two danish counties about half of the unemployed workers were randomly assigned to a mandatory activation program analyzing data from this experiment we show that activation can be very effective in reducing unemployment durations

gasoline demand revisited an international meta analysis of elasticities meta analysis is used to determine if there are factors that systematically affect price and income elasticity estimates in studies of gasoline demand four econometric models are estimated using long run and short run price and income elasticity estimates from previous studies as the dependent variables explanatory variables include functional form lag structure time span national setting estimation technique and other features of the model structure elasticity estimates are found to be sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of some measure of vehicle ownership static models appear to overestimate short run elasticities underestimate long run price elasticities but pick up the full long run income responsiveness there is variation in the elasticity of demand across countries especially in the short run and gasoline demand appears to be getting more price elastic and less income elastic over time

the ricardian approach to budget deficits persistent budget deficits have increased economists interest in theories and evidence about fiscal policy this paper develops the ricardian approach and contrasts it with standard models the discussion considers from major theoretical objections to ricardian equivalence finite lifetimes imperfect capital markets uncertainty about future taxes and incomes and the distorting effects of taxation the paper then considers empirical evidence on interest rates consumption and saving and current account deficits the conclusion is that the ricardian approach is a useful first order approximation and that this approach will probably become the benchmark model for assessing fiscal policy this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

social capital innovation and growth evidence from europe this paper investigates the interplay between social capital innovation and economic growth in the european union we identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into economic growth in an empirical investigation of 102 european regions in the period 1990 2002 we show that higher innovation performance is conducive to economic growth and that social capital affects growth indirectly by fostering innovation our estimates suggest that there is only a limited role for a direct effect of social capital on economic growth

global models applied to agricultural and trade policies a review and assessment the continuing process of global integration bears implications for farmers and related supplying and processing industries in all parts of the world but also for the rest of the world economy an assessment of agricultural and trade policy impacts is bound to be complex and is often supported by quantitative modeling analysis this article provides an assessment of the present state of applied modelling in the area of trade and agricultural policies we provide in this paper a comparative assessment of alternative modelling approaches considering a total of 16 partial equilibrium and general equilibrium models the assessment includes theoretical modelling foundations datasets employed and institutional aspects such as model maintenance and dissemination of results a typology of models is provided by structuring the assessment along a clear set of evaluation criteria

do wage subsidies increase employment in subsidized firms this paper examines whether subsidized jobs have contributed to employment in subsidized firms or have merely substituted for non subsidized ones the data set is an unbalanced panel of some 31 000 firms that are followed annually between 1995 and 2002 the analysis is based on difference in differences which is adjusted by regression and matching methods the results indicate that wage subsidies stimulate employment and that the magnitude of the effect is as aimed i also found that subsidies have no sizeable effects on non subsidized firms

inflation expectations in euro area phillips curves abstract we analyze the information content of alternative inflation expectations measures including those from consumers firms experts and financial markets in the context of open economy phillips curves we adopt a thick modeling approach with rolling regressions and we assess the results of an out of sample conditional forecasting exercise by means of meta regressions the information content varies substantially across inflation expectations measures in particular we find that those from consumers and firms are better at predicting inflation if compared to those from experts and especially those from financial markets

successful in the long run a meta regression analysis of persistent firm profits we study the profit persistence literature by applying meta regression analysis mra to a set of 36 empirical papers which analyze the persistence of abnormal firm profits over time the analyzed literature provides evidence for a mediocre degree of persistence in abnormal profits an initial analysis of the distribution of reported profit persistence estimates reveals some degree of excess variation this points toward publication bias that favors significant results independent of their algebraic sign the mra however reveals that publication bias is particularly favoring results that indicate profit persistence and thus contradict the neoclassical model of perfect competition moreover the mra enables to control for heterogeneity driven by the study design we find that the analyzed country developing vs developed the applied econometric approach as well as the analyzed period of time are significant drivers of heterogeneity in reported persistence estimates

does economic diplomacy work a meta analysis of its impact on trade and investment we review the literature on economic diplomacy and provide a meta analysis of 32 empirical studies published in 1986 2011 that deal with the trade and investment impact of economic diplomacy embassies consulates other diplomatic facilities investment and export promotion offices trade and state visits controlling for differences in research design methodology time frame and manner of data we find a positive and significant effect of economic diplomacy on international economic flows with the exception of state visits and that this is true in a sample of 627 t statistics analysed with ols and for a larger sample of 963 reported significance levels analysed with logit thus illustrating robustness with respect to sample and estimation technique our analyses show that reported effects of economic diplomacy on trade and investment in individual studies are sensitive to model specification the primary studies that investigate only one source country are less likely to report significant positive effects compared to other sciences economic studies are less likely to report significantly positive effects of economic diplomacy primary studies lump embassies and consulates general into one indicator miss that these instruments differ significantly embassies consulates and agencies should thus be included as separate instruments in future research

why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s since 1976 the gender gap in wages on average declined by about 1 per year this article focuses on identifying the factors underlying this trend three data sets are analyzed the current population survey the panel study of income dynamics and the national longitudinal survey we find that convergence in measurable work related characteristics schooling and work experience explains one third to one half the narrowing the remainder is attributable to a relative increase in women s returns to experience as well as to declining wages in blue collar work and other factors

declining bias and gender wage discrimination a meta regression analysis this paper extends tests and revises a previous meta regression analysis of the gender wage gap stanley and jarrell 1998 we find that there remains a strong though dampened tendency for discrimination estimates to fall and male researchers still report significantly larger amounts of wage discrimination against women this extensive research base containing 104 estimates suggests that there is less need to correct for selection bias an indirect sign of lessened discrimination there is evidence that gender research is changing and improving although gender wage discrimination has lessened the research base still finds a significant gender wage inequality

education and economic growth a meta regression analysis summary this paper surveys the literature which examines the effect of education on economic growth specifically we apply meta regression analysis to 57 studies with 989 estimates and show that there is substantial publication selection bias toward a positive impact of education on growth once we account for this the genuine growth effect of education is not homogeneous across studies but varies according to several factors specifically it is attributed to differences in education measurement and study characteristics mainly model specification as well as type of data used and the quality of research outlets where studies are published e g academic journals vs working papers

intensive coaching of new immigrants an evaluation based on random program assignment the purpose of this study is to evaluate whether intensive counseling and coaching by public employment service pes caseworkers improves the employment opportunities of new immigrants in sweden this is tested within the framework of introduction programs for new immigrants a trial introduction program was implemented from october 2006 to june 2008 within participating municipalities new immigrants were randomly assigned into treatment intensive coaching or control regular introduction programs the results indicate that there are significant treatment effects on employment probabilities as well as on participation in intermediate pes training programs

a meta analysis of the union nonunion wage gap the authors use meta regression analysis a new method for synthesizing empirical results reported in the economic literature to corroborate and extend h gregg lewis s landmark 1986 research on t

meta regression analysis a quantitative method of literature surveys abstract 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 a new method of reviewing economic literature mra and discuss its potential

how to help unemployed find jobs quickly experimental evidence from a mandatory activation program abstract this paper investigates how a mandatory activation program in denmark affects the job finding rate of unemployed workers the activation program was introduced in an experimental setting where about half of the workers who became unemployed in the period from november 2005 to march 2006 were randomly assigned to the program while the other half was not it appears that the activation program is very effective the median unemployment duration of the control group is 14 weeks while it is 11 5 weeks for the treatment group the analysis shows that the job finding rate in the treatment group is 30 higher than in the control group this result is mainly driven by the more intensive contacts between the unemployed and the public employment service

evaluation of swedish youth labor market programs this paper evaluates two swedish active labour market programmes for youth namely youth practice and labour market training a non parametric matching approach is applied to estimate the average p

are all economic facts greatly exaggerated theory competition and selectivity there is growing concern and mounting evidence of selectivity in empirical economics most empirical economic literatures have a truncated distribution of results the aim of this paper is to explore the link between publication selectivity and theory contests this link is confirmed through the analysis of 87 distinct empirical economics literatures involving more than three and a half thousand separate empirical studies using objective measures of both selectivity and contests our meta meta analysis shows that publication selection is widespread but not universal it distorts scientific inference with potentially adverse effects on policy making but competition and debate between rival theories reduces this selectivity and thereby improves economic inference

the effects of competition and equal treatment laws on gender wage differentials discrimination if it is inefficient can be eliminated by competition in most countries it is also forbidden by law this paper evaluates the influence of economic and legal factors on the portion of male female wage differentials that is not explained by other worker characteristics and may be due to discrimination we use a new international data set of suitable gender wage gap measures constructed from the results of existing studies meta analysis of the data shows that increased competition and adoption of international conventions concerning equal treatment laws both reduce gender wage gaps while legislation that prevents women from performing strenuous or dangerous jobs tends to increase it doris weichselbaumer and rudolf winter ebmer

meta analysis of general and partial equilibrium simulations of doha round outcomes quantification of welfare changes due to trade liberalization plays a crucial role for political decision making however significant differences in simulated gains from liberalization do not serve to increase confidence in quantitative assessments based on trade models a meta analysis of trade simulations under the wto doha round is employed to identify model characteristics that influence the magnitude of simulation results findings from a simple regression model are plausible and show that each simulation experiment represents a complex interaction of model characteristics and experimental settings that may not easily be communicated to nonexperts meta analysis proves to be useful for empirically assessing this complexity

equilibrium exchange rates in central and eastern europe a meta regression analysis abstract this paper analyses the ever growing literature on equilibrium exchange rates in the new eu member states of central and eastern europe in a quantitative manner using meta regression analysis the results indicate that the real misalignments reported in the literature are systematically influenced inter alia by the underlying theoretical concepts balassa samuelson effect behavioral equilibrium exchange rate fundamental equilibrium exchange rate and by the econometric estimation methods the important implication of these findings is that a systematic analysis is needed in terms of both alternative economic and econometric specifications to assess equilibrium exchange rates

determinants of price elasticities for private labels and national brands of cheese an almost ideal demand system model is developed and used to estimate price elasticities for us cheese sold at retail growing consumption of cheese coupled with fierce competition between private labels and national brands serves as motivating factors for this study per capita consumption of cheese grew by 75 during 1980 2004 and private labels captured a rising share of this growth private labels today account for 35 of market share national brands for the remaining 65 kraft accounts for 45 of national brands but price increases for kraft brands led to a sizeable price gap between its brands and private labels this gap helped to stimulate growth of private labels marketing managers seek to capitalize on both growing cheese sales and price gaps for brands relevant information for marketing managers is consumer sensitivity to price changes this study uses 69 weeks of scanner data with consumers segmented by income levels to derive price elasticities for both lower and higher income consumer

measuring intertemporal substitution the importance of method choices and selective reporting i examine 2 735 estimates of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption eis reported in 169 published studies the literature shows strong selective reporting researchers discard negative and insignicant estimates too often which pulls the mean estimate up by about 0 5 the reporting bias dwarfs the effects of methods with the exception of the choice between micro and macro data when i correct the mean for the bias for macro estimates i get zero even though the reported t statistics are on average two the corrected mean of micro estimates of the eis for asset holders is around 0 3 0 4 calibrations greater than 0 8 are inconsistent with the bulk of the empirical evidence jel e21 c83

inflation targeting genuine effects or publication selection bias abstract this paper uses a meta regression analysis mra to evaluate the impact of publication selection bias as for the macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting it a popular approach to implementing monetary policy documented in the existing literature using 8 059 point estimates from 113 studies we show that a significant part of the documented positive effects of it on inflation and to some extent output growth volatility is in fact due to publication selection bias in particular results pointing to lower inflation volatility and higher real gdp growth tend to be favored by researchers as well as those pointing to statistically significant macroeconomic effects however even after controlling for these two types of biases we find it to be correlated with lower inflation and higher real gdp growth differently the evidence on the it inflation volatility relationship is found to be less clear

survey article publication bias in the literature on foreign direct investment spillovers abstract in this article we conduct a large quantitative survey of the literature on horizontal and vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi we create a unique database of spillover estimates for each country examined in the literature next we estimate the average effect corrected for publication selection bias the preferential selection of positive and significant estimates for publication our results suggest that an average reported estimate of backward spillovers is statistically significant publication selection is evident only among studies published in peer reviewed journals and only among the estimates that authors consider most important authors with small data sets engage in more publication selection the intensity of selection in the literature decreases over time which supports the economics research cycle hypothesis

a meta analysis of general and partial equilibrium simulations of trade liberalisation under the doha development agenda model based simulation of welfare effects is commonly used to make a case for trade liberalisation and to inform participants a nd stakeholders in trade negotiations however the simulated welfare effects of trade liberalisation vary greatly even across studies that model similar liberalisation scenarios this

explanatory meta analysis for the comparison and transfer of regional tourist income multipliers baaijens s r nijkamp p and van montfort k 1998 explanatory meta analysis for the comparison and transfer of regional tourist income multipliers reg studies 32 839 849 this paper aims to demonstrate the potential of quantitative research synthesis in particular meta analysis as a methodology for comparative research with a particular view on tourist impact analysis the attention is focused on regional tourist multipliers which measure the effects of tourist expenditure on the economy of a given area on the basis of a varied sample of studies on tourist multipliers differences among tourist income multipliers are ex post examined the preliminaries of this investigation are discussed in order to elucidate some important issues meta analysis may be confronted with in addition the results of the comparative analysis of previous studies are transferred to the greek island of lesvos this area was estimated to have an average tourist income multiplier falling in between 0 55 and 0 67 baaije

is the environmental kuznets curve for deforestation a threatened theory a meta analysis of the literature abstract although widely studied deforestation remains a common research topic the relationship between economic development and deforestation is still in question this paper presents a meta analysis of environmental kuznets curve ekc studies for deforestation using 69 studies offering 547 estimations we shed light on why ekc results differ we investigate the incidence of choices made by authors such as econometric strategy measure of deforestation geographical area and presence of control variables on the probability of finding an ekc after a phase of work corroborating the ekc we find a turning point after the year 2001 building on our results we conclude that the ekc story will not fade until theoretical alternatives are provided

publication bias in the economic freedom and economic growth literature abstract the impact of institutions on economic performance has attracted significant attention from researchers as well as from policy reformers a rapidly growing area in this literature is the impact of economic freedom on economic growth the aim of this paper was to explore publication bias in this literature by means of traditional funnel plots meta significance testing as well as by bootstrapping these meta significance tests when all the available estimates are combined and averaged there seems to be evidence of a genuine and positive economic freedom economic growth effect however it is also shown that the economic freedom economic growth literature is tainted strongly with publication bias the existence of publication bias makes it difficult to identify the magnitude of the genuine effect of economic freedom on economic growth the paper explores the differences between aggregate and disaggregate measures of economic freedom and shows that selection effects are stronger when aggregate measures are used

a development friendly prioritisation of doha round proposals agriculture looms large on the wto s agenda it was the first substantive item listed in the work programme of the ministerial declaration launching the doha round and it was arguably at the centre of the failure at cancun developing countries made it clear both before and during the cancun meeting that progress on agriculture was their primary objective negotiations in other areas have received less attention and progressed more slowly this paper considers that prioritisation and suggests that the interests of developing countries in the current round of trade negotiations are much broader than is suggested by the narrow range of agricultural issues that have dominated negotiations a true development round would require a significant reprioritisation of many areas of the wto s current agenda

land tenure and investment incentives evidence from west africa abstract the existing literature on the relationship between property rights in land and agricultural investment in africa has given results that are often confusing and contradictory i make two clarifying contributions to this literature first i pull together existing studies and investigate whether the results they find have been affected by research methods or local contexts studies with small sample sizes those that use binary investment measures and those that control for household fixed effects are less likely to find a statistically significant link between land tenure and investment self reported tenure security has been a poor predictor of investment outcomes second i test for a relationship between land tenure and agricultural investment in nine data sets from west africa while the link between tenure and investment is significant for fallow and tree planting it is less robust for labor use and other inputs such as manure or chemical fertilizer

whither armington trade models the armington trade model distinguishes commodities by country of origin and import demand is determined in a separable two step procedure this framework has been applied to numerous international agricultural markets with the objective of modeling import demand in addition computable general equilibrium cge models commonly employ the armington formulation in the trade linkage equations the purpose of this paper is to test the armington assumptions of homotheticity and separability with data from the international cotton and wheat markets both parametric and nonparametric tests were performed and the empirical results reject the armington assumptions this has important implications for international trade modeling and cge modeling

the effect of state and local taxes on economic development a meta analysis economists and policy makers have long questioned the effect of state and local taxes on economic development according to schmenner 55 economists have long argued that taxes had little impact on business location decisions while development practitioners and elected officials ignored this advice and aggressively pursued development by using tax incentives more recent research using improved data and methodologies has begun to show that taxes can make a difference and the emerging consensus among economists now says that taxes do matter this changing view among researchers is perhaps best exemplified in a 1991 study by timothy j bartik 2 bartik examined 84 econometric studies completed since 1979 which assess the impact of state and local taxes on economic growth in the u s he concluded that the long run elasticity of business activity with respect to state and local taxes was between 10 and 60 for studies focusing on intermetropolitan or interstate business economic activity and between 1 0 and 3 0 for intrametropolitan areas however bartik s study did not control for a variety of study characteristics that may have influenced the measured elasticity this study builds upon bartik s analysis by performing a meta analysis of the studies bartik reviewed meta analysis is a method for statistically analyzing results across empirical studies though it has been little used by economists researchers in psychology education and health sciences have used meta analysis extensively this study uses a meta analytic technique suggested by stanley and jarrell 57 to analyze the studies reviewed by bartik the technique yields increased precision for our understanding of the relationship between state and local taxes and economic development the objective of this study is two fold first to derive a more precise estimate of the tax elasticity and second to determine how the inclusion and omission of key variables in the estimated equations influences the elasticity estimates

integrating immigrants the impact of restructuring active labor market programs we examine the impact of restructuring active labor market programs for unemployed immigrants in finland exploiting a discontinuity in the phase in rules of the reform we find that it increased c

publication selection and the income elasticity of the value of a statistical life abstract estimates of the value of a statistical life vsl establish the price government agencies use to value fatality risks transferring these valuations to other populations often utilizes the income elasticity of the vsl which typically draw on estimates from meta analyses using a data set consisting of 101 estimates of the income elasticity of vsl from 14 previously reported meta analyses we find that after accounting for potential publication bias the income elasticity of value of a statistical life is clearly and robustly inelastic with a value of approximately 0 25 0 63 there is also clear evidence of the importance of controlling for levels of risk differential publication selection bias and the greater income sensitivity of vsl from stated preference surveys

the benefits of relationship lending in a cross country context a meta analysis relationship lending may create benefits for borrowers by reducing information asymmetries however empirical evidence is mixed we conduct a meta analysis to summarize and explain the heterogeneity in the results in the literature using hand collected information from 101 studies in the united states europe asia and latin america from 1970 to 2010 we find that strong relationships are generally beneficial for borrowers but lending outcomes differ across the relationships dimensions long lasting exclusive and synergy creating bank relationships are associated with higher credit volume and lower loan rates these benefits are more likely in the united states and in countries where bank competition is high they are not related to the importance of small and medium sized enterprises in an economy suggesting that prevalence of relationship lending does not necessarily come along with borrower benefits our inferences are robust when we control for observed systematic heterogeneity in the original

meta analysis of empirical evidence on energy poverty the case of developing economies abstract energy poverty has evolved as an important issue of research from academic and policy perspectives during the last two decades the energy poverty estimates exhibit widespread variations across regions methodologies and datasets making the task of energy and development policies challenging the variations in energy poverty estimates necessitate a systematic and rigorous analysis of these empirical studies to obtain a true measure of energy poverty the present study conducts a meta analysis of 30 studies and 103 estimates of energy poverty on average 71 1 percent of the population in the overall sample studies has been identified as energy poor high i square statistic values suggest heterogeneity bias in the sample studies therefore analysis at the subgroup level has been conducted meta regression analysis of overall sample and subgroups has identified type of methodology citations impact factor of the journal regional dummies average key crude oil price and gross domestic product as significant factors that explain heterogeneity in the energy poverty effect sizes we recommend inclusion of local and regional factors in assessment of energy poverty for developing a uniform methodology to assess energy poverty across developing economies

time series minimum wage studies a meta analysis time series minimum wage studies a meta analysis author s david card and alan b krueger reviewed work s source the american economic review vol 85 no 2 papers and proceedings of the hundredth and seventh annual meeting of the american economic association washington dc january 6 8 1995 may 1995 pp 238 243 published by american economic association stable url http www jstor org stable 2117925 accessed 04 11 2011 15 46

the effects of exchange rate variability on international trade a meta regression analysis the trade effects of exchange rate variability have been an issue in international economics for the past 30 years the contribution of this article is to apply meta regression analysis mra to the empirical literature on average exchange rate variability exerts a negative effect on international trade yet mra confirms the view that this result is highly conditional by identifying factors that help to explain why estimated trade effects vary from significantly negative to significantly positive mra evidence on the pronounced heterogeneity of the empirical findings may be instructive for policy first by establishing that average trade effects are not sufficiently robust to generalize across countries and second by suggesting the importance of hedging opportunities hence of financial development for trade promotion for the practice of mra we make a case for checking the robustness of results with respect to estimation technique model specification and sample

citizens consumers and farm animal welfare a meta analysis of willingness to pay studies the sustainable intensification of animal production systems is increasing as a consequence of increased demand for foods originating from animals production diseases are particularly endemic in intensive production systems and can negatively impact upon farm animal welfare there is an increasing need to develop policies regarding animal production diseases sustainable intensification and animal welfare which incorporate consumer priorities as well as technical assessments of farm animal welfare consumers and or citizens may have concerns about intensive production systems and whether animal production disease represent a barrier to consumer acceptance of their increased use there is a considerable body of research focused on consumer willingness to pay wtp for improved animal welfare it is not clear how this relates specifically to a preference for reduced animal production disease incidence in animal production systems a systematic review and meta analysis were conducted to establish the publics wtp for farm animal welfare with a focus on production diseases which arise in intensive systems systematic review methodology combined with data synthesis was applied to integrate existing knowledge regarding consumer wtp for animal welfare and reduced incidence of animal production diseases multiple databases were searched to identify relevant studies a screening process using a set of pre determined inclusion criteria identified 54 studies with the strength of evidence and uncertainty for each study being assessed a random effects meta analysis was used to explore heterogeneity in relation to a number of factors with a cumulative meta analysis conducted to establish changes in wtp over time the results indicated a small positive wtp 0 63 standard deviations for farm animal welfare varying in relation to a number of factors including animal type and region socio demographic characteristics explained the most variation in the data an evidence gap was highlighted in relation to reduced wtp for specific production diseases associated with the intensification of production with only 4 of the 54 studies identified being related to this a combination of market and government based policy solutions appears to be the best solution for improving farm animal welfare standards in the future enabling the diverse public preferences to be taken into consideration