In the Spring 2014 edition of CentrePiece:

In this edition:

Victorian internet: the trade impact of the transatlantic telegraph

The telegraph was the Victorian equivalent of today?s `big data?, helping firms to forecast future demand. Analysing such unique historical `experiments? helps understand how firms and markets respond when new technology... Read more...

In brief... New technology: who wins, who loses?

Technology has transformed the once powerful office of ambassador into a glorified sales position, while nurses, teaching assistants and medical technicians all benefit from the ICT revolution. According to an empirical ... Read more...

Minimum wages: the economics and the politics

The UK?s national minimum wage has tackled extreme low pay ? but the wider problem of low pay remains as serious as ever. That is one of the conclusions of Professor Alan Manning in a discussion of the growing popularity... Read more...

Immigrant's access to social housing: perception and reality

Although most UK immigrants are likely to be eligible to apply for social housing, there is no evidence that they have preferential access ? if anything the reverse seems to have been the case. But it does seem that ther... Read more...

Turning houses into gold: the failure of British planning

Britain?s crisis of housing affordability is nothing to do with foreign speculators, according to Paul Cheshire. Rather, it is a result of decades of misguided planning policies that constrain the supply of land and turn... Read more...

Falling real wages

The researchers note that there have been historically unprecedented falls in UK real wages since the start of the Great Recession. What?s more, the long US experience of stagnant real wages (median real weekly earnings ... Read more...

In brief... Management in America

There are strong links between the performance of US manufacturing plants and the quality of their systems of monitoring, targets and incentives, according to research by Professor Nicholas Bloom and colleagues. Their an... Read more...

In brief... Does management matter in schools?

Better school management is associated with better pupil achievement, according to CEP analysis of the quality of management practices in schools in a range of developed and developing countries. Renata Lemos notes that ... Read more...

Gender and the labour market: evidence from experiments

Lab experiments are an increasingly valuable tool for understanding differences in how men and women are treated in the labour market. Dr Ghazala Azmat and Professor Barbara Petrongolo explore what has been learned about... Read more...