In the Spring 2017 edition of CentrePiece:

In this edition:

Larrikin youth: can education cut crime?

If young people spend longer in school, are they less likely to commit crimes? Stephen Machin and international collaborators examine the impact on youth crime of an educational reform in Australia that raised the minimu... Read more...

Liberation technology: mobile phones and political mobilisation in Africa

Digital technologies have been widely used for political activism in recent years. In the first systematic test of their role as catalysts for political participation, Marco Manacorda and Andrea Tesei find that the growi... Read more...

In brief... Is technology to blame for jobless recoveries?

Since the early 1990s, the United States has been plagued by weak employment growth when emerging from recessions ? so-called `jobless recoveries?. Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels look at multiple recoveries elsewhere in t... Read more...

Origins of happiness

Understanding the key determinants of people?s life satisfaction makes it possible to suggest policies for how best to reduce misery and promote wellbeing. A forthcoming book by Richard Layard and colleagues discusses ev... Read more...

Superstar houses and the American mortgage frenzy

Clement Bellet shows how visible wealth inequality fuelled the US mortgage boom that preceded the financial crisis. Read more...

In brief... What can be done to help low-achieving teenagers?

Young people who drop out of school are far more likely to experience unemployment and poverty than their peers. Experimental research by Eric Maurin and colleagues in deprived neighbourhoods of Paris shows the effective... Read more...

Does teacher turnover affect young people's academic achievement?

Do educational results suffer in schools where there is a high turnover among the teaching staff? Shqiponja Telhaj and colleagues explore this question by analysing data from all state secondary schools in England. Read more...

The roles of nature and history in world development

Vernon Henderson and colleagues explore fundamental determinants of the location of economic activity. Read more...