In the Winter 2005 edition of CentrePiece:

In this edition:

Effective intervention: making aid work

Despite the many failures of the past, foreign aid is once again seen as a way to 'make poverty history'. Peter Boone argues that to have a real impact on extreme poverty, aid needs to be much more carefully targeted, al... Read more...

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do I.T.

It's taken a long time to confirm that computers boost productivity. But as Nick Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen show, the key to their success seems to lie in management - and that's where US firms have been ... Read more...

Mamma's boys? Why most young Italian men live with their parents

It is a cliche that Italian children are particularly attached to their mothers, even when they're grown up. New research by Marco Manacorda and Enrico Moretti investigates why so many of them are still living with their... Read more...

Can more police resources reduce crime?

New research by Stephen Machin and Olivier Marie finds that the Street Crime Initiative, introduced in 2002, has been highly effective in reducing the number of robberies. Increased police resources can have a big impact... Read more...

'Va-et-vient'?

Nearly a third of immigrants in Western Europe intend to spend part of the year in their host country and the rest back home when they retire. That at least is the implication of analysis of a representative sample of mo... Read more...

'Excellence in cities'

The government's Excellence in Cities policy has improved the educational outcomes for secondary school pupils in disadvantaged areas, according to new economic research by Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Costas Meghi... Read more...

Mental health: the choice of therapy for all

Richard Layard has spent much of his professional life tackling unemployment and inequality. But in his latest work, he argues that mental illness is now Britain's biggest social problem. Read more...

The part-time pay penalty

Women working part-time in the UK have hourly earnings that are on average 26 percent less than women working fulltime. Alan Manning and Barbara Petrongolo investigate what's behind this part-time pay penalty. Read more...

Skills for all

CEP's Skills for All research programme has been looking at the life choices and life chances of the many young people in the UK who do not go to university. Hilary Steedman summarises the key findings and what they mean... Read more...