ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we discussed how to search and code research for a meta-analysis. This chapter focuses on the description of these data, presenting alternative ways of summarizing research findings. It is important to note at the outset that describing a literature is not the central aim of meta-analysis in economics. Meta-analysis offers so much more than this. The main contribution of meta-analysis is to make inferences about the state of economic and business knowledge and to correct a literature for misspecification and selection biases that typically plague empirical studies (see Chapters 4 and 5). This more analytic and comprehensive meta-analysis enables meta-analysts to test rival theories and to provide accurate and corrected estimates of policy-relevant parameters.
