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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 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.

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 examine the correlation between the degree of economic freedom in state institutions and industry employment and then determine how these correlations relate to economic growth.

The authors find the correlation between employment and economic freedom for each NAICS industry code and then calculate total employment in industries with positive correlation and negative correlations. The authors use these values in a GDP equation.

The authors find that employment growth in industries characterized by a negative correlation is associated with a decline in state per capita GDP. When the correlations between employment and economic freedom are positive, state per capita GDP tends to grow, even after accounting for overall economic freedom in the state.

Eliminating or reducing opportunities for firms to use government institutions to gain special treatment will lead to greater economic growth.

This paper allows the data to determine which industries potentially engage in productive and unproductive entrepreneurship.

Prior to the first session I was asked about my view of rent seeking, mentioned in passing in the document of mine distributed earlier. I replied that my view had three parts. First, I agreed that rent seeking, however defined, was ubiquitous. Second, I argued that rent seeking is not bad per se. Third, I argued that I found particularly disgraceful treatments of the allocation of resources to efforts to change the law as bad rent seeking. Both this person and Jim Buchanan (later in the conference) insisted that rent seeking was objectionable when it involved a transfer without a gain in efficiency, i.e. the creation of something productive. I responded that this view substituted the analyst’s definition of productive for that of the economic agent – who obviously believed that hiring a lawyer, etc. to help bring about a potential change in the law was a desirable, hence productive, use of his or her resources. I further insisted that this definition, especially when it was used in a blanket, indiscriminate way, functioned to privilege existing law and those benefiting from existing law and to deny people access to their government, and that it did so by manipulating the definition of rent seeking to give effect to selective antecedent normative premises hidden within the use of the term “productive” (in at least one discussion the term “artificial” was used). I pointed to this as a problem in the use of language. Further aspects of the terminology of rent seeking will be dealt with below.

This paper examines how contemporary workplace surveillance can simultaneously incentivize and commodify workforce behavior. Specifically, workplace surveillance is reconceptualized as rent-seeking, which offers a framework for analyzing novel employer-employee relationships stemming from alternate views of risk and reward.

The case of workplace microchipping is studied qualitatively as a backdrop for theorizing emergent labor relations in the context of surveillance capitalism and biopolitics.

Reconsidering surveillance within the context of personal risk and entrepreneurial lure offers much to 21st century discourse on labor and supervision. It is imperative that the public sector engages in appropriate regulatory protocols to manage emergent behavior in organizations.

This study departs from the popular conceptualization of human microchipping as an intersection of legal and ethical considerations of surveillance. Instead, the authors examine a different aspect of the microchipping phenomenon, taking into account employee creative reactions to employer surveillance in the context of risk and return.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2022-0009

Researchers of legislative behavior have attempted to explain the decisions of legislators for some time. Public choice scholars have argued that legislators will “sell” political favors in exchange for some from of interest group payment that is thought to benefit the legislator's electoral ambitions. Yet, legislators do not appear to receive the full value of their political favor in these exchanges. That is, the value of the policies offered appears to exceed the price paid by interest groups in the form of campaign contributions, speaking honoraria and other material payments. This imbalance has led some scholars to discount theories that explain legislative behavior motivated by material gain. However, to the extent that legislators value post‐elective employment opportunities, interest groups have an incentive to use the offer of future employment as a payment for present legislative influence. In this sense, perhaps a large portion of the difference in payments can be accounted for in the post‐elective employment careers of elected politicians. In this paper, I explore and explain this theory using a political market model and attempt to identify several attributes that I believe will be common among “prospect‐legislators” whose behavior is principally motivated by concerns with post‐elective life.

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.

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.