Skip to main content

CentrePiece

The Centre's magazine features new research and policy ideas from the CEP. Written for non-specialist readers, CentrePiece articles are analytical, rigorously-evidenced and showcase the latest economic methods. Published three times a year.

Illustration of housing signs from the front cover of CentrePiece. Credit: Frank Whittle.
CentrePiece Autumn 2022
The housing affordability crisis

This term's CentrePiece cover story shows examines the causes of the housing affordability crisis, and why this particular problem is so difficult to solve. Read more...
Illustration from CentrePiece Autumn 2022
Clean technologies for growth and equity

Developing energy sources that don't cause climate change is a strategy for growth that could also contribute to the UK's levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. Read more...

Latest CentrePiece articles

CentrePiece article
CEP Insights: Crime

Findings from CEP researchers about how crime is influenced by wages, benefits, education, policing, and lockdowns....Read more...

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Supporting the UK’s self-employed

Two years after the Covid-19 crisis began, incomes of the UK’s self-employed remain well below their pre-pandemic levels. Robert Blackburn and Maria Ventura explain why the solo self-employed, who represent about 85% of ...Read more...

Robert Blackburn and Maria Ventura

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
in brief... Women economists benefit when seminars go online

The rise in working from home and the fall in business travel during the pandemic prompted a huge increase in remote meetings. Marcus Biermann looks at who benefitted from the shift to online research seminars in economi...Read more...

Marcus Biermann

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Drivers of bad management: evidence from Mexican firms

The management of firms in developing countries is typically of lower quality than in richer parts of the world. A study of Mexico by Nicholas Bloom, Leonardo Iacovone, Mariana Pereira-López and John Van Reenen indicates...Read more...

Nicholas Bloom, Leonardo Iacovone, Mariana Pereira-Lopez and John Van Reenen

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
The impact of school closures on educational inequality

Nearly all schools closed at some point during the Covid-19 pandemic. Reviewing the international evidence to date on the impact of these closures, Jo Blanden, Matthias Doepke and Jan Stuhler warn that they will substant...Read more...

Jo Blanden, Matthias Doepke and Jan Stuhler

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Stagnation nation

Even before the cost of living crisis, a toxic combination of slow growth and high inequality was threatening UK living standards, particularly for families on low and middle incomes. The Economy 2030 Inquiry is examinin...Read more...

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Environmental costs of the global job market for economists

Each year, the international job market for economists involves more than 1,000 candidates and several hundred recruiters from around the world meeting for short pre-screening interviews at annual congresses in Europe an...Read more...

Olivier Chanel, Alberto Prati and Morgan Raux

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Clean technologies for growth and equity

Public investment in developing energy sources that don’t cause climate change is a strategy for economic growth that could also contribute to the UK’s levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. His analysis indicates that s...Read more...

Ralf Martin

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
Policies for affordable housing: options and obstacles

The crisis of housing affordability has been mounting for decades, driven by growing demand for properties in desirable areas where supply is limited. Numerous policies have been enacted across countries, but many are in...Read more...

Christian A. L. Hilber and Olivier Schoni

20 October 2022

CentrePiece article
in brief... Confusopoly: how mobile phone companies use product complexity to raise prices

Confusing consumers can be profitable for companies, particularly in a highly competitive market. Christos Genakos, Tobias Kretschmer and Ambre Nicolle find evidence that, for a period, phone operators decreased the tran...Read more...

Christos Genakos, Tobias Kretschmer and Ambre Nicolle

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Lessons from ten years of the World Happiness Report

The World Happiness Report gives us an annual insight into global wellbeing. Maria Cotofan looks at what we have learned about the determinants of wellbeing in the past ten years – and what challenges and opportunities l...Read more...

Maria Cotofan

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Reducing gender gaps in mathematics education

Girls and young women underperform in mathematics relative to their male peers - a loss of talent that may hinder productivity growth. Almudena Sevilla and Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz explain how new developments in gender economi...Read more...

Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz and Almudena Sevilla

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
in brief... Social mobility in the time of Covid-19

Young people, especially those from poorer households, have been hard hit by the economic impact of Covid-19. Andrew Eyles assesses the extent of the shock and what it means for social mobility - the extent to which indi...Read more...

Andrew Eyles

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Covid-19: the impact on local crime rates

The pandemic changed the way people worked, shopped, socialised and travelled. Patterns of crime and policing changed too. Shubhangi Agrawal, Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera reveal how different parts of the UK are...Read more...

Tom Kirchmaier and Carmen Villa-Llera

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Young people’s university plans: evidence from German reunification

Around a decade after Germany's reunification, a long-standing educational gap between the east and west of the country - completion of the certificate needed to enter university - had closed. Ghazala Azmat and Katja Kau...Read more...

Ghazala Azmat and Katja Kaufmann

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
How Brexit has raised UK food prices

Some products imported to the UK from the European Union have been more affected by the post-Brexit trading rules than others. Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Luisa Opitz and Dilan Yang find that leaving th...Read more...

Jan David Bakker, Nikhil Datta, Josh De Lyon, Luisa Opitz and Dilan Yang

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Trade disruptions in the wake of Brexit

A dramatic fall in the value of UK imports from the European Union relative to the rest of the world occurred when the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into effect. What's more, according to research by R...Read more...

Rebecca Freeman, Kalina Manova, Thomas Prayer and Thomas Sampson

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
The economics of levelling up

There is an economic tension at the heart of the government’s plans for 'levelling up' the UK, according to CEP's research director Henry Overman. He argues that getting serious about helping people to access good job op...Read more...

Henry G. Overman

21 June 2022

CentrePiece article
Remembering David Marsden

David Marsden, who passed away in August 2021, was involved in CEP research for many years, working on employment and industrial relations, youth employment and training, performance-related pay, performance management a...Read more...

David Metcalf

22 February 2022

CentrePiece article
In Brief... How Pelé changed Brazilian football

A ban on non-compete agreements in Brazilian football led to an increased lifetime income for players. But as research by Bernardo Guimaraes, João Paulo Pessoa and Vladimir Ponczek reveals, it was older players who gaine...Read more...

Bernardo Guimaraes, Joao Paulo Pessoa and Vladimir Ponczek

22 February 2022

Latest 20 publications shown.     View all