Combining the Results of rationality Studies: What Did We know and When Did We know It?

Numerous empirical literatures display conflicting results. This paper examines the conflicting results concerning the rationality of forecasts and expectations. Meta-analysis techniques are used to examine the empirical studies that tested the rationality hypothesis. What did we know, and when did we know it, about the rationality of forecasts? Our purpose is to systematically document how conclusions change over time and to investigate whether meta-analysis techniques might have been useful in shedding light on those findings. The results differ depending on which meta null is used, but there still is no definitive finding about the rationality of these forecasts.