Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2009
P. Hall defined the k–index of a variety , of groups to be the least cardinal number r such that if a group G is generated by a set S and every subset of S of cardinality at most r generates a group in then G ∈ . We show that the only variety which has finite k–index and contains a product of two non-trivial varieties is the variety of all groups. As a consequence of this and P. Hall's result that nilpotent varieties have finite k–index we show that a soluble variety or a variety generated by a finite group has finite k–index if and only if it is nilpotent.