In the Winter 2016 edition of CentrePiece:

In this edition:

Crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: towards evidence-based policies

Latin America and the Caribbean account for a third of the world?s homicides but under 10% of the world?s population. What?s more, homicide rates in the region are higher than they should be given countries? levels of in... Read more...

Equity crowdfunding: a new model for financing entrepreneurship?

In recent years, the UK has become a leader in fostering an entirely novel mechanism for raising capital for small business enterprises. Saul Estrin and Susanna Khavul explain how `equity crowdfunding? works ? and the be... Read more...

Flooded cities

Economic activity tends to return to flood-prone areas after floods rather than relocating to higher ground. What?s more, cities built in flood-prone areas are locking in exposure to flood risk for the long term. These a... Read more...

In brief... The rewards for getting a good degree

It pays to study hard at university, according to research by Shqiponja Telhaj and colleagues. Their study finds that there is a significant hourly wage premium for getting a first or upper second. For graduates more tha... Read more...

What makes consumers switch mobile phone tariffs?

The potential psychological pain of nasty surprises on mobile phone bills is a great motivator to switch tariffs, according to research by Christos Genakos and colleagues. Their study notes that navigating through thousa... Read more...

Misery and mental health

Mental illness is a far bigger source of human misery than poverty or unemployment, according to research by Sarah Fleche and Richard Layard. They argue that we need to move beyond a purely materialistic conception of mi... Read more...

In brief... Rapid response policing: the impact on crime detection

Rapid response policing not only boosts crime detection but also reduces the time it takes to find the offenders. That is the central finding of analysis of data from the Greater Manchester Police by Jordi Blanes i Vidal... Read more...

Online hiring of offshore workers: the value of intermediaries

`Old boy networks? have not been rendered obsolete by modern communications technology. That is one of the conclusions of a study of global online labour markets by Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas. Their researc... Read more...