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This paper aims to investigate the effect of global financial market uncertainty on the relation between risk and return in G7 stock markets.

Market uncertainty is quantified using a probability-based measure derived from a regime-switching model in which the state transition probabilities are time-varying in response to leading economic indicators. Time variation in the risk return relation is estimated using a GARCH-M model.

While the regime-switching model successfully distinguishes between crisis and normal states, there remains substantial variability through time in the level of uncertainty about which state prevails. Results show that a strong negative relation exists between this uncertainty and the reward-to-variability ratio across all G7 stock markets. This finding is qualitatively consistent at both monthly and weekly horizons.

Extant evidence on the risk-return relation is conflicting. Most papers assume the relation is time constant. Allowing the reward-to-variability ratio to vary through time in response to return regime uncertainty increases the understanding of asset pricing. It also has important implications for asset allocation decisions by investors.

The purpose of this paper is to study correlations between the national real estate investment trusts (REIT) markets in the USA and the four Asia‐Pacific countries of Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, and document the extent to which the time variation present in these correlations can be explained from a set of 11 economic and financial factors. Both US dollar and local currency returns are used.

Time‐varying correlations are estimated using a DCC‐GARCH model that allows for asymmetries in both the correlations and volatilities. The correlations are then regressed on a set of four economic and seven financial factors, and tests of statistical significance are conducted in order to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant explanatory variables. The authors estimate a fixed‐effects panel regression as well as individual regressions for each dynamic correlation.

Significant time variation is found in the four REIT correlation series. Panel regressions suggest that REIT correlations rise with increases in the interaction of national inflation rates and with higher global equity market uncertainty. It is also found that REIT correlations fall with increases in the US default risk premium and global equity market volume. Relaxing the structure imposed by the panel data model, individual regressions confirm most of the results, although there are some exceptions. It is also found that there are no substantial differences in the dynamics of the correlation coefficients when switching from the US dollar to local currency denominated returns.

Investors in real estate securities across national markets should take into account information about the credit spread, the volatility and volume of global equity markets, and inflation rates when modeling correlations. These variables may alert the investors to the possibility that, under a set of circumstances, investing in real estate across different markets may not provide the expected diversification benefits. Another implication relates to the impact of currency hedging. It appears that the impact of switching from US dollar to local currency denominated returns does not substantially change the time dynamics of the correlations, or the importance of explanatory variables.

Although considerable progress has been made in modelling time‐varying correlations between various REIT markets, to the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first papers to investigate the underlying causes of the co‐movement, especially between the US and Asia‐Pacific markets. The paper's results will help investors and risk managers make better choices by identifying those factors that have more systematic effects on the change in the REIT correlations, rather than more transient forces.

UNTIL the end of 1948 Mr. Nowell remains our President and his occupancy of the office has fulfilled all that we expected of him. It has been forceful and, we think, has left its mark upon us, his general statesmanship and complete sanity of outlook being shown whenever he had occasion to direct meetings or to speak to them. He does not now go into retirement as our past four presidents‐have done by the fiat of superannuation schemes ; he has what President Cashmore called the glory of going on for a number of years yet. He will therefore continue to exercise profound influence on public and other librarianship with the wisdom and power with which, as President, he has won general thanks.

Purpose – This chapter traces the creation of a market for strategy by management consulting firms during the second half of the twentieth century in order to demonstrate their impact in shaping debates in the subject and demand for their services by corporate executives.

Design/methodology/approach – Using historical analysis, the chapter draws on institutional theory, including institutional isomorphism. It uses both primary and secondary data from the leading consulting firms to describe how consultants shifted from offering advice on organizational structure to corporate strategy and eventually to corporate legitimacy as a result of the changing economic and regulatory environment of the time.

Findings/originality/value – This study provides a historical context for the emergence of corporate and competitive strategy as an institutional practice in both the United States and around the world, and provides insights into how important this history can be in understanding the debates among consultants and academics during strategy's emergence as an academic subject and practical application.

WE have recently published one or two articles in which a contributor with a considerable knowledge of the Chinese economy has described some of that country's industrial activities. The articles have been scrupulously factual and impartial in revealing the ingenuity which has enabled a people desperately short of the technological resources of the industrialised nations to secure for themselves some of life's essentials.