THE AGGREGATE DEMAND FOR LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA: A META-ANALYSIS*

In this paper, meta-analysis techniques are applied to 34 studies of the aggregate demand for Australian labour. Inverse associations between the real wage and employment and demand and unemployment are established, and positive associations between demand and employment and the real wage and unemployment are established. The associations are stronger with respect to the real wage. The results suggest that at least two-thirds of the variation in estimates across studies is artifactual and is due to specification differences. It is argued in this paper that the available studies are of limited value to policy formulation. No single empirical study can provide definitive measures of a particular parameter. This guarantees that substantial numbers of empirical studies of the more important parameters describing labor demand will have been produced. (Hamermesh, 1993, p. 61)