Shifted Multiple Dirichlet Series

We develop certain aspects of the theory of shifted multiple Dirichlet series and study their meromorphic continuations. These continuations are used to obtain explicit spectral first and second moments of Rankin-Selberg convolutions. One consequence is a Weyl type estimate for the Rankin-Selberg convolution of a holomorphic cusp form and a Maass form with spectral parameter $|t_j|\le T$, namely: $$\left| L\left(\frac{1}{2}+ir, f\times u_j\right) \right| \ll_N T^{2/3+\epsilon},$$ uniformly, for $|r| \le T^{2/3}$, with the implied constant depending only on $f$ and the level $N$.