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Illegal changes of use in aged industrial and residential buildings is now a prevalent problem in Hong Kong. This research aims to develop a strategy for an effective and efficient control of illegal land use in a highly dense environment, with high rise buildings in multiple leasehold ownerships.

Multiple cases were qualitatively analyzed, based on documentary analysis of the court proceedings.

In Cases 1 and 2, lease conditions for restriction to industrial purposes on aged industrial buildings were found to be obsolete and not economically viable, thus resulting in illegal conversion of the premises for commercial use. Cases 2 and 3 showed that ambiguity in user clauses in land leases could lead to illegal changes of use from industrial or residential to commercial activities. Most importantly, Cases 1 and 3 demonstrated that limited resources for lease enforcement are the fundamental cause of the problem. Cases 4 and 5 proved that property managers could take effective legal action against changes of use in buildings with multiple ownerships.

The results of this study are derived from five typical cases in Hong Kong, but they form a baseline upon which further research can build to test their significance in many other settings. Ultimately, a more robust strategy can be developed for ensuring an effective and efficient control of illegal land uses in the leasehold system for Hong Kong and for those countries with a similar tenure system.

A total economic and management strategy should be implemented by the government. The land management system should work in partnership with private property managers which are empowered under the Deed of Mutual Covenant (DMC) of multiple occupied buildings to take instant action against individual owners for breaches of lease conditions. The system should also be more flexible to expand the scope of new uses for aged industrial premises, allow affordable premium for lease modifications, as well as review and clarify any ambiguous user clauses in the related land ordinances.

The public should be educated that it is important to seek approvals and consents from the government prior to making any changes of land use. The government should also establish a housing policy to provide sufficient affordable housing for the lower income group so that illegal sub‐divisions on buildings for residential purposes can be eliminated.

The improvement measures identified can effectively enforce compliance with lease conditions, which in turn can reduce the enforcement transaction costs, ensure efficient allocation and use of land in the leasehold system, and maintain building safety.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This paper shows how a shorter fecundity horizon for females (a biological constraint) leads to age and educational disparities between husbands and wives. Empirical support is based on data from a natural experiment commencing before and ending after China’s 1980 one-child law. The results indicate that fertility in China declined by about 1.2–1.4 births per woman as a result of China’s anti-natalist policies. Concomitantly spousal age and educational differences narrowed by approximately 0.5–1.0 and 1.0–1.6 years, respectively. These decreases in the typical husband’s age and educational advantages are important in explaining the division of labor in the home, often given as a cause for the gender wage gap. Indeed, as fertility declined, which has been the historical trend in most developed countries, husband-wife age and educational differences diminished leading to less division of labor in the home and a smaller gender wage disparity. Unlike other models of division of labor in the home which rely on innately endogenous factors, this paper’s theory is based on an exogenous biological constraint.

HARROGATE will be notable as the venue of the Conference in one or two ways that distinctive. The Association Year is now to begin on January 1st and not in September as heretofore; and, in consequence, there will be no election of president or of new council until the end of the year. The Association's annual election is to take place in November, and the advantages of this arrangement must be apparent to everyone who considers the matter. Until now the nominations have been sent out at a time when members have been scattered to all parts of the country on holiday, and committees of the Council have been elected often without the full consideration that could be given in the more suitable winter time. In the circumstances, at Harrogate the Chair will still be occupied by Sir Henry Miers, who has won from all librarians and those interested in libraries a fuller measure of admiration, if that were possible, than he possessed before he undertook the presidency. There will be no presidential address in the ordinary sense, although Sir Henry Miers will make a speech in the nature of an address from the Chair at one of the meetings. What is usually understood by the presidential address will be an inaugural address which it is hoped will be given by Lord Irwin. The new arrangement must bring about a new state of affairs in regard to the inaugural addresses. We take it that in future there will be what will be called a presidential address at the Annual Meeting nine months after the President takes office. He will certainly then be in the position to review the facts of his year with some knowledge of events; he may chronicle as well as prophesy.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

BOURNEMOUTH lies in one of the most beautiful parts of South‐west England; and all the world knows how this region has been immortalised by Thomas Hardy, who by his romances and poems has introduced to the public of England and America the ancient land of Wessex.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.