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IT is with peculiar pleasure that I find myself once more engaged in University Extension work under the presidency of Lord Goschen. Until your well‐remembered tenure of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer drew you from active service with us, my lord, you presided for many years over the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and therefore, over myself as a humble member of the Council. I trust you have as pleasant memories of us, as obedient and diligent workers, as we have of you as an energetic and enthusiastic chairman. Many changes have come since then. The London Society is a thing of the past, absorbed into my own University, which itself has changed almost beyond recognition. One of the members in your time is now a Bishop, another rules South Africa, you, yourself, no longer sway the House of Commons. If we still existed and had now to hold a sub‐committee in the chamber of our colleague Milner, we should have to travel many hundreds of miles instead of walking round to Duke Street, St. James's, as you will remember we did in those old days.

The randomised control trial is regarded as the gold standard among the methods used in treatment outcome studies, whatever the treatment. This method imposes the highest level of control over other factors that may influence outcome so that the true effects of the treatment can be tested. In this paper the key features of an RCT are examined, along with potential challenges that emerge when applied to evaluations of psychotherapeutic interventions with people who have learning disabilities.

BRITAIN's new metal—superplastic aluminium—is making headway in some of the most sophisticated industries, from aeronautics to computers. The unique properties of the new material, which allows complex components to be formed in one operation, is cutting costs for an increasing number of customers.

Inequality and freedom mean different things to different people; whether inequality should encapsulate ethical concepts such as the desirability of a particular system of rewards or simply mean differences in income appears to be the subject of much debate. The World Bank conceptualises inequality as the dispersion of a distribution, whether that is income, consumption or some other welfare indicator or attribute of a population. When Lawrence Reed introduced his seven principles of sound public policy at a presentation at the Economic Club of Detroit, one item that stood out was his principle which stated that “free people are not equal and equal people are not free“. He was not addressing the foundation of equality in society but about income and material wealth a person may earn in the marketplace, essentially he was addressing “economic equality”. Hofstede touches on a number of postulates when he speaks of inequality within a society and how it is visible in the existence of different social classes: upper, the middle, and lower. According to Hofstede, classes differ in their access to and their opportunities to benefit from the advantages of society. He cites education and the benefits derived by advanced education. The World Bank has concluded that inequality in intelligence is part of the human condition and inescapably contributes to a substantial degree of income inequality that greater equality of opportunity cannot circumvent. This article examines a number of concepts which dispel formal equality theory and the belief that equality is achieved if the law treat likes alike is faulted.

The part now being played by logistics in corporate strategy is recognized. Reviews ten articles exploring the theme of “recent insights into logistics”.

John Taylor devised a simple monetary policy rule that links the Federal Reserve's policy interest rate with inflation and output targets. This paper compares actual policy rates with the rates that would have been recommended by the basic Taylor Rule for three long periods in U.S. economic history: 1875–1913 (“Pre Fed”), 1914–1951 (“Early Fed”), and 1952–1998 (“Modern Fed”). In addition, the authors develop a more complex version of the Rule to facilitate a comparison of the way in which each monetary authority would have reacted to the economic challenges presented outside its own time period. The empirical evidence suggests that Modern Fed would have reacted more promptly and appropriately to inflation and output problems outside its time period than either Early Fed or Pre Fed, and that the movement of interest rates in the Pre Fed period came closer to the corrective policies of Modern Fed than did those of Early Fed.

We would like to thank C. Y. Chen, Wenchih Lee, two anonymous referees and the seminar participants at the 2000 FMA annual meeting for their helpful comments and encouragement. All of the remaining errors are our responsibility.

The United States, it was once felt, could have a different foreign policy when isolated by two oceans in comparison to the later period when modern technology destroyed its isolation. Foreign policy is thus a function of geography modified by technology. The United States, commencing some time after the first third of the 19th century, had a further choice. It could live up to its self-image as a liberal constitutional democracy and follow a foreign policy of live and let live, in both respects serving as a role model for the rest of the world. Or, like the monarchical dynasties of the past and other regimes of more recent times, it could pursue an aggressive foreign policy in pursuit of what it considered its interests, engendering enmity in various quarters. The United States has done both. In the first category it has preferred isolationism, reluctantly joining the two World Wars in defense of its autonomy. In the second category, it increasingly either engaged in the practices of conventional imperialism, often at the behest of entrepreneurial interests, or flexed and deployed its muscle in pursuit of national interests either on its own initiative or in response to threats from and capabilities of other countries. The former is American exceptionalism; the latter is conventional. Of course, the history is much more complex than the foregoing directly allows. Several other stories or models can be developed (the most recent is Mead, 2001).

This paper aims to examine the controversial issue of the extent to which Federal Reserve monetary policy may have contributed to the recent housing crisis and subsequent adverse macroeconomic developments.

The authors develop a small model that facilitates OLS and VAR estimates of the critical period.

The empirical results support the claim of John B. Taylor and others who held that monetary policy was excessively stimulative in terms of the low fed funds rate 2002‐2005, but also support the view of Alan Greenspan and others that the linkages between short‐term rates, long‐term rates, and the housing market deteriorated during that decade.

The model includes the Taylor Rule, a housing equation, and a mechanism linking the two relationships. The empirical results support elements of the camp that blames monetary policy for the recent housing crisis, and elements of the opposing camp which limits policy culpability. Specifically, it suggests excessive monetary ease and a structural change (for which the Fed cannot be blamed) in the monetary policy‐housing market linkage that occurred prior to the crisis. The results also support long‐term, prior crisis, channels of influence that run from the state of the economy to fed funds rates to mortgage interest rates to housing prices. A return to normalcy in the housing market should be accompanied by the re‐establishment of these channels.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

De‐institutionalisation and resettlement have had a significant impact on offenders with learning disabilities (LD) who are now more visible in the wider community than before. Perhaps because of the challenges presented by people who were previously contained in institutions, there has been a growth of interest in their characteristics, the services and clinical interventions required to support them.This narrative review presents and discusses recent developments concerning offenders with LD. It looks at the historical association between crime and low intelligence, and then examines the evidence concerning the prevalence of offending by people with LD and recidivism rates. Recent research concerning service pathways for this population is summarised and progress in the development of actuarial, dynamic and clinical assessments of the future risk of offending is outlined.The second half of the paper focuses on a review of the evidence for and recent developments in the treatment of offending behaviour (anger/aggression, sexual offending and fire‐setting), utilising broadly cognitive behaviourally‐based approaches. Finally, future directions for research and practice innovation are proposed.