Welcome to the fourth issue of Insights
Insights publishes condensed and edited versions of important public lectures connected with the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. Its objective is to share with the wider public – especially Alumni – the issues presented and developed in these lectures. It also constitutes an archival source of an important element of Faculty life.
Editor’s Note
This volume appears in the middle of the most serious international monetary crisis since 1929. In our last issue, we published a prophetic paper by Satyajit Das about the inevitable bursting of the liquidity bubble. This bubble has clearly burst. Unfortunately, the deadline for this issue prevents us from publishing two forthcoming lectures dealing more directly with the causes and consequences of the credit crisis. These will appear in the next volume of the journal.
However, the recent large number of public lectures has provided a rich harvest for inclusion in this volume. Three professors expound their particular areas of interest in their Inaugural Lectures. These are followed by papers on a number of contemporary issues – global imbalances, industrial relations, a summary by Professor Sedgwick of the proceedings of the Economic and Social Outlook Conference, intelligent systems in accounting, and an interview with Nobel Laureate Lucas on inequality and incomes across societies. Finally, this issue includes condensed versions of six refresher lectures given by leading Faculty members. These lectures are aimed at updating Alumni on recent developments and research in a number of fields.
Insights is sent to a large number of Alumni and other interested people; and it is also accessible on the Faculty’s webpage. We hope it is widely read and finds a place in waiting rooms and on coffee tables for others to read. So far this year, more than 8,000 people accessed the publication online from Australia, US, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, UK, India and Singapore.
Insights is a team effort. Caroline Stirling has done the artistic illustrations, which are suggestive of the themes of some of the papers, in this issue. We congratulate her on depicting the substance of the first article for the journal’s cover so tastefully. Finally, comments and suggestions from readers – on all aspects of the journal – are most welcome.
Joe Isaac
Editor