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The paper seeks to address conceptually the issue of monetary valuations of environmental intangibles.

The paper offers an innovative approach based on the rent‐seeking behaviour of individuals, as seen in lobbying for environmental goods. As an alternative to the contingent valuation method, which relies largely on willingness‐to‐pay disclosures in hypothetical situations, this approach depends on actual payments made by individuals in real situations. If individuals are willing to spend scarce resources to obtain an environmental good, then the total expenditures incurred provide an estimate of the value of that environmental good.

The estimates provide a lower bound of value of certain environmental goods. The rent‐seeking approach gives a different and more direct way to determine the value of environmental public goods.

The paper considers the free‐rider problem and other issues arising from the voluntary nature of public good rent‐seeking activity.

The purpose of this paper is to study the rent-seeking behavior of stakeholders in construction projects and to provide a reference for further studies on collaboration in China, which could thus improve the collaborative management in construction and reduce the waste of resources.

In this paper, the authors discuss and analyze the current situation of rent-seeking behavior in infrastructure construction projects, integrated project delivery (IPD), and the application of a building information model (BIM) in China. The authors analyze the collusive behavior between the supervision department and the contractor via the rent-seeking model on the basis of the game theory and present that BIM and IPD have a positive impact on rent-seeking activities of construction projects. The key factors influencing the rent-seeking activities from the perspective of the owner are studied via a questionnaire survey.

The research status of IPD in China includes the application of IPD, IPD collaborative management and the combination of lean construction (LC), IPD and BIM. The enthusiasm of the adoption of BIM and IPD is higher for design institute, construction units, research institutions and universities. The findings indicate that the owner appears to have a significant influence on stakeholders in construction projects, such as supervising efficiency, rewards and punishment. Therefore, the results also demonstrate that the construction project based on BIM and IPD can effectively avoid the rent-seeking activities of the participants.

The findings are primarily based on questionnaire data originated from Central China; hence there are some limitations that are worth noting.

First, it provides compelling data evidence for the adoption of BIM and IPD in China. Second, it paves a solid foundation for the behavior of stakeholders in construction projects based on BIM and IPD.

In this paper, a game model of contractor, supervisor and owner is established, and a preliminary attempt is made to introduce BIM and IPD into the model for the behavioral research of participants.

The purpose of the present study is to test the hypothesis alluded to by Tullock, within the context of defensive rent‐seeking efforts developed by others (e.g. McChesney). Here, we test the idea that defensive rent seeking efforts (or rent‐defending) to maintain the status quo augment offensive rent‐seeking (all proxied by real campaign contributions to US House/Senate candidates, 1976‐1992) during federal budgetary climates of deficit‐cutting (budget‐balancing). When a panel estimator is properly used, our econometric evidence confirms our hypothesis. Evidence from a Parks regression technique suggests that total rent‐seeking is positively related to the amount of federal spending, as others have shown, but that rent‐seeking efforts increase when federal budget deficits are reduced, threatening existing spending patterns and rents. Perhaps an unintended consequence of deficit‐reduction efforts, holding government spending constant, is an increase in the size of the rent‐seeking industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of rent-seeking behaviour and rentier state in the context of ẓulm (injustice and exploitation), which is one of the key concerns in Islam in general and Islamic economics and finance in particular.

As a conceptual paper, it draws on the literature of rent-seeking as part of public choice theory and examines the potential vulnerabilities as well as existence of rent-seeking in Muslim-majority countries, where Islamic finance industry primarily operates.

The paper identifies several areas where both actual and potential rent-seeking exists.

The paper is conceptual. Based on the analysis presented here further studies can be undertaken to determine the scope of rent-seeking and their impact in Muslim-majority societies.

Incorporating rent-seeking in the theoretical and conceptual framework of Islamic economics and finance can enhance understanding about ẓulm and its ubiquitous presence, as Islam has a firm stance to aspire to have a ẓulm-free society.

Understanding rent-seeking behaviour can help appreciate why corruption, inequality and poverty are so entrenched, and why limiting the discourse to ribā (interest) ignores the broader scope of injustice and exploitation.

This might be the first focused paper that conceptually deals with rent-seeking behaviour, connecting the discourse about ribā-interest equation.

Zoning is typically deemed a negative‐sum game accompanied by a call for the establishment of a market for development rights. Using a formal one‐stage game of a typical zoning lottery, I demonstrate that zoning is not exclusively negative‐sum, but can also be positive‐sum, even with internalized social costs.

The purpose of this study is to determine how Western business practitioners, specifically Australian accounting professionals, identify with the Chinese value concept of guanxi and the impact of their perceptions of guanxi on their ethical decision-making. This objective is predicated by a belief that aspects of guanxi are similar to the Western concepts of social networking and would be identified by practitioners as an organizational process providing positive benefits to those associated with its application. Further, it is anticipated that concepts of guanxi influence the way Australian accountants form ethical judgements and intentions, precursors to acceptable moral behaviour.

A cross-sectional questionnaire based on a survey of 111 usable Australian accounting professionals was completed during 2012. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate each construct of guanxi before a path analysis was performed.

Australian accounting professionals associate well with the favour-seeking aspects of guanxi, suggesting an affiliation with Western concepts of social networking. Both groups (i.e. public accountants and private accountants) reject rent-seeking guanxi as clearly unethical. Rent-seeking guanxi is seen to directly influence ethical judgement and intention; however, their favour-seeking guanxi attitudes do not influence ethical judgement or intention, regardless of employment type. Public and private accountants apply guanxi in a differential manner when determining moral intention. Public accountants are viewed as acting spontaneously without adequately considering the consequences (via the judgement phase), which appears to be a function of the nature of their personal association with the case study applied in this research.

The research provides evidence that Australian accounting professionals relate to favour-seeking guanxi as representative of a broader notion of social networking. In this context, the guanxi instrument appears to be amenable to cross-cultural evaluations of group behaviour. Significant differences of opinion exist compared to the prior Chinese studies when unethical practices are considered. The guanxi instrument proves to be a useful tool when examining the group interactions involving Western professionals and also helps establish differences in moral constructions based on employment types.

Against the background of the enormous economic transition China is undertaking, government intervention over corporate behavior is a frequent and, arguably, necessary measure. Among the most serious problems facing China, economically and reputationally, are environmental issues. So, how is the government intervening in the environmental performance of Chinese enterprises? And how are Chinese enterprises responding? These are the questions to be answered in this study.

This paper sampled listed companies on China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. The data were collected from the HeXun corporate social responsibility report, CSMAR and WIND databases. A Tobit model was used to conduct the main 2SLS regression analysis, and the robustness tests followed the propensity score matching method.

The analysis shows that environmental performance is positively related to the government subsidies a company receives. The “Eight-point Regulation of the Centre” crack-down on social corruption introduced in 2012 has weakened rent-seeking overall, but rent-seeking behavior through the cloak of corporate environmental performance has become more serious. As a result, non-polluting and state-owned enterprises are significantly less concerned about their environmental performance, while polluting and private enterprises are more motivated to become good environmental citizens.

This research provides a greater understanding of the drivers behind environmentally-responsible behavior in Chinese companies. These insights can be used by policymakers and environmental regulators to incentivize a more widespread ground-swell of change across the gamut of Chinese business.

Environmental policy and practice informed by research-driven recommendations can not only make valuable contributions to the health and well-being of Chinese society but also, as a significant contributor to climate change, environmental reforms have global benefits.

This study explores the motivations behind rent-seeking associated with environmental investment. The findings expand the research horizon of relevant literature on corporate political rent-seeking and deepen the understandings of the economic consequences of corporate investment into environmental practice. The results provide empirical evidence for the Chinese government to implement environmental regulations based on incentives beyond simple profit-making.

Mises (1949[1963], p. 692) explains that market-failure justifications for state actions, such as economic regulation “ascribe to the state not only the best intentions but also omniscience.” He then points out that neither assumption is valid: government is not benevolent since both, those who are employed by the state and those who demand state actions, have subjective self-interests, and it is not all knowing since knowledge is widely dispersed and the cost of coordination is infinitely high, particularly without market profits and prices as coordinating mechanisms. Furthermore, Mises suggests that dropping either assumption undermines the conclusions that state intervention is necessarily desirable even if some sort of market failure is actually identified. Austrian economists in the Mises tradition have tended to focus on the knowledge problem in their challenges to regulation, however. Many Austrians obviously recognize the interest problem, of course, but they often assume it away in order to illustrate that government interference with markets is not desirable even if it is well intended. In contrast, public-choice analysis tends to focus on the interest problem as source of government failure, although some public-choice analysts also obviously recognize the knowledge problem. Indeed, this difference in perspective is so pronounced that Ikeda (1997, p. 240) explicitly distinguishes between Public Choice and Austrian political economy by suggesting that the Austrian approach assumes benevolence on the part of government officials, while the public-choice approach assume narrow interests.¹ Ikeda (1997, p. 150) also suggests that the separation of these two approaches is justified because “Austrian political economy and public choice are each capable of standing on their own [so] public-theorists…find it optimal simply to continue to pursue their research along the line of either the former or the latter approaches.” The following presentation questions this assertion. Instead, both assumptions should be dropped, and the resulting integrated Austrian-public-choice model should be expanded to include assumptions about the relationships between regulations, property rights security, and both market and political behavior.²

With the increase of state capital, corporate total factor productivity (TFP) has a tendency to jump up at first and then slowly decrease. Generally, no significant “productivity paradox” can be observed in China’s manufacturing industry. With the increase of export density, corporate TFP also shows a trend of initial jump growth and subsequent slow decline. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using the 1996–2013 China Industrial Enterprise Database, this paper studies the monopolistic behavior of Chinese manufacturing enterprises through the measurement of TFP and corporate monopoly power.

Results show that China’s manufacturing monopoly enterprises are generally innovation-oriented rather than rent-seeking. However, there are certain differences between diversified types of monopoly enterprises: the ones with state capital are more inclined to innovate than those without, whereas the ones with export delivery value are more inclined to seek rent than those without.

Therefore, the government should implement differentiated policies for diversified types of monopoly enterprises, and do so in a targeted manner fully reflecting the containment of rent-seeking and the encouragement of innovation.

The objective of this study is to examine how formal and informal institutional environment influences managers’ fair value opinion shopping behaviour in the largest International Financial Reporting Standards adopter, China.

To test the hypotheses, I conduct a 2 × 2 between-subject randomised experiment since the inferences about cause and effect are important in this study. The between-subject experimental situations are manipulated on the basis of the financial condition of companies and boards’ oversight.

I find that managers are likely to seek favourable fair value opinions from external valuation professionals when they are under the weak boards’ oversight and high stress to meet the regulation target of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. These results are more pronounced for managers with higher both rent-seeking and favour-seeking guanxi orientations are more likely to engage in fair value opinion shopping.

Consistent with theoretical analysis of Balfoort et al. (2017), this study provides empirical evidence that guanxi influences the neutrality and faithful representation in fair value measurement in China. In addition, the findings extend Salzsieder’s study (2015) and reflect the context-embeddedness nature of accounting.