Exploring the motivation and effect of government-enterprise collusion in the utilization of marine resources: Evidence from China's coastal areas

Abstract

From the perspective of the new political economy, this paper aims to reveal the phenomenon of government-enterprise collusion in the utilization of marine resources, and finds that government-enterprise collusion is one of the reasons for the overexploitation and disorderly utilization of marine resources and the continuous deterioration of the marine ecological environment. First, a sequential game model is constructed and solved to reveal the motivation of government-enterprise collusion in the utilization of marine resources. Then, using a comprehensive feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) method and panel data from 11 coastal areas in China from 2002 to 2015, we investigate the effect of government-enterprise collusion on the utilization of marine resources. The findings show that government-enterprise collusion has a significant positive effect on the utilization of marine resources, which has led to the expansion of the use of sea areas. Specifically, (1) officials serving in their hometowns prefer to approve more sea areas for sea-using enterprises than officials transferred from other places. (2) There is a U-shaped relationship between the age of the officials and the utilization of marine resources. (3) Central supervision can effectively reduce the collusion between local governments and enterprises. The findings of this paper are of great policy significance for the current management of the utilization of marine resources and environmental protection.