Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2017
In 2014, the first two authors proved an extension to modules of a theorem of Camillo and Yu that an exchange ring has stable range 1 if and only if every regular element is unit-regular. Here, we give a Morita context version of a stronger theorem. The definition of regular elements in a module goes back to Zelmanowitz in 1972, but the notion of a unit-regular element in a module is new. In this paper, we study unit-regular elements and give several characterizations of them in terms of “stable” elements and “lifting” elements. Along the way, we give natural extensions to the module case of many results about unit-regular rings. The paper concludes with a discussion of when the endomorphism ring of a unit-regular module is a unit-regular ring.