Analysis of Multi-Stakeholders’ Behavioral Strategies Considering Public Participation under Carbon Taxes and Subsidies: An Evolutionary Game Approach

• Main Authors: Wanting Chen, Zhi-Hua Hu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-01-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: evolutionary game; government; manufacturers; carbon taxes; low-carbon subsidies; public participation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/1023

Considering public participation in environmental management, we developed a tripartite game model among governments, manufacturers and publics under carbon taxes and subsidies to investigate whether the mutual relationship between governments and the public can urge manufacturers to adopt low-carbon technology by examining the interaction effect among the multi-stakeholders. In this study, we focus on manufactured products without significant low-carbon peculiarity. For these products, consumers have no way to identify which are from low-carbon production and which are not. The results show that governments and the public have a complementary and coordinating relationship indeed. The regulation cost of governments, the supervision reward for the public and the supervision cost of the public can all influence the behavioral strategies among the multi-stakeholders, including governments, manufacturers and the public. With the regulation cost strengthens dramatically, governments can consider increasing the supervision reward to support the public to participate in the management of manufacturers’ behaviors. Publics should also actively improve their management ability, and the low cost of public participation in supervision is an effective reflection to make up for the lack of government regulation. The implementation of carbon taxes is more advantageous in urging low-carbon manufacturing than government subsidies for low-carbon production. A complete carbon label system can reflect the low-carbon preferences of consumers to help manufacturers integrate low-carbon behavior into their operational decisions.