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In recent years, the importance of Internetand World Wide Web (WWW) technologies inmanufacturing industries has been risingvery rapidly in a global context. According toa recent study, Manufacturing Foresight 2020,conducted by UK Department of Trade andIndustry (DTI), the impact of thisdevelopment is deemed the most profoundsince the Industrial Revolution

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the issue of convergence in the monthly returns, rental growth and yields for ten market segments in the UK direct real estate market, using monthly data over the period from January 1987 to December 2014.


Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used to determine convergence is principal component analysis as it provides an assessment of the extent to which the variance of the market segments can be represented by a single common factor, explaining their long-run behaviour, and the degree of independence between the market segments.


Findings
The results suggest that there is strong evidence of convergence over the entire sample period in relation to monthly returns and yields but less evidence of convergence in rental growth, which confirms the findings in previous studies in international markets.


Practical implications
The evidence also suggests that convergence has increased over the sample period and that convergence is period specific and was particularly strong during and after the period of the Global Financial Crisis, which implies that the UK direct real estate market is largely integrated and as a consequence the extent of diversification potential in the market is still severely limited.


Social implications
The convergence in returns has crucial implications for investors as it leaves investors exposed to the same structural shocks and so magnifies the importance of volatility spillover effects, limits their ability to create well-diversified portfolios and make it more difficult for fund managers to outperform the market.


Originality/value
This is the first paper to examine the convergence in the UK direct real estate market.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect on US stock, bond and real estate investment trust (REIT) prices triggered by the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's announcement of a possible intent to unwind, or taper, quantitative easing (QE). In particular, the author assessed whether the effect of the "Taper Tantrum" was fundamental or financial on financial markets.


Design/methodology/approach
– The methodology used to determine whether the effect of the "Taper Tantrum" was fundamental or purely financial is that suggested by French and Roll (1986) as extended by Tuluca et al. (2003). The analysis is based on daily data for large cap stocks, small cap stocks, long-term bonds and REITs for 18 months before Ben Bernanke's announcement and for 18 months after the announcement.


Findings
– The results show that the "Taper Tantrum" had a fundamental, rather than a financial effect on all asset classes, especially so for REITs.


Practical implications
– The author also found that in the post-taper period following Ben Bernanke's announcement the correlation of REITs with stocks decreased compared with pre-taper period, whereas the correlation of REITS with bonds increased substantially. In other words, the "Taper Tantrum" had a profound effect on the risk/return benefits of including REITs in the US mixed-asset portfolio.


Originality/value
– This is the first paper to examine the effect of the "Taper Tantrum" on REITs.

This paper raises the question of how a proposition such as 'Creative Citizenship' might fit into the UK policy landscape. It begins by describing the appeal of such a concept to politicians keen to latch on to an idea that positions the electorate as creative, engaged and technologically astute. However, Creative Citizenship runs the dangers of being yet another fashionable, wide-ranging concept that political leaders tend to be 'mesmerised' by as they write up their election manifestos. Initiatives based on such ideas rarely meet with success and therefore for Creative Citizenship not to meet with the same fate it must be more clearly defined. The paper outlines a manifesto for Creative Citizenship that would allow for a more targeted application on those areas of public policy where the features of Creative Citizenship might be seen to be making a positive difference.

PurposeThe usefulness of ex‐post data as a proxy for ex‐ante returns in the portfolio problem rests on the stability of the co‐movement between returns. Yet despite its importance, this issue has not received sufficient examination in the financial literature, particularly in the direct real estate market. This study aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the temporal stability of covariance and correlation matrices and individual correlation coefficients this paper uses the Box M tests and the methodology of Shaked using monthly real estate data in the UK over the period 1987 to 2002 and four investment horizons.FindingsThe Box M tests reveal that the covariance and correlation matrices both display temporal instability. This suggests that the returns between real estate returns are unstable over time and so provide poor estimates in the ex‐ante modelling process. The analysis also indicates that the covariance matrices are less stable than the corresponding correlation matrices. Nonetheless, when we tested the stability of individual correlation coefficients using the methodology of Shaked we find that stability increases consistently and substantially with the lengthening of the investment horizon and holding period.Practical implicationsThus, for all practical purposes the pair‐wise correlation between real estate returns can be considered nearly stationary in the long run. This implies that investors can use ex‐post data as a proxy for ex‐ante data in portfolio models especially if longer investment horizons are used to estimate the parameters.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine temporal co‐movements between UK real estate returns in a portfolio context over different investment horizons.

There are three basic approaches to style analysis: (i) an examination of the portfolio and security selection procedures used by the fund managers, (ii) a factor model approach, and (iii) return‐based approaches, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Of the return‐based methods the effective asset mix approach, as devised and popularised by Sharpe, offers the investor the simplest route to style analysis. This study applies this approach to a sample of 37 property funds in the UK and shows that style analysis can make an important contribution to the analysis of portfolio performance. Results that should prove of considerable interest to fund managers and property professionals alike.

Dictatorships : comparative timeline 1918-45 -- Prologue: The seventeen dictatorships, 1918-45 -- The setting for dictatorship -- Types of dictatorship -- Dictatorship in Russia -- Dictatorship in Italy -- Dictatorship in Germany -- Dictatorship in Spain -- Dictatorship elsewhere -- Dictatorships vs. democracies -- Dictatorships compared -- Epilogue: Europe since 1945