Meta-analysis helps researchers do which of the following:
a. Investigate the effects of minimum wage increases through controlled laboratory experiments
b. Infer the effects of increases in the minimum wage by averaging the results of other studies
c. Generally find elasticity estimates for labor demand to be highly elastic
d. Examine changes in the minimum wage in multiple countries
I think answer is b. according to the literature below:
"Research since 2007, however, has reported conflicting findings. Some studies use “meta-analysis,” averaging across a set of studies to draw conclusions. For example, Doucouliagos and Stanley (2009) report an average elasticity across studies of −0.19, consistent with earlier conclusions, but argue that the true effect is closer to zero; they suggest that the biases of authors and journal editors make it more likely that studies with negative estimates will be published. However, without strong assumptions it is impossible to rule out an alternative interpretation—that peer review and publication lead to more evidence of negative estimates because the true effect is negative. In addition, meta-analyses do not assign more weight to the most compelling evidence. Indeed, they often downweight less precise estimates, even though the lower precision may be attributable to more compelling research strategies that ask more of the data. In short, meta-analysis is no substitute for critical evaluation of alternative studies."