Supervision after Certification: An Evolutionary Game Analysis for Chinese Environmental Labeled Enterprises

Factors affecting firms' green technology innovation: an evolutionary game based on prospect theory

In the context of green development and the construction of ecological civilization, a key issue for governments is how to promote firms' green technology innovation. Assuming the bounded rationality of decision-makers, this paper constructs a game model of green technology innovation between firms and the government based on prospect theory. It dynamically analyzes the decision process and optimal strategy under different scenarios and uses numerical simulation to identify the influencing factors. There are three main findings. (1) Firms' green technology innovation decisions depend on the net income difference between strategies. Environmental regulation encourages firms to carry out green technology innovation by increasing the environmental costs to non-green technology innovation firms and increasing the income of green technology innovation firms. (2) Uncertainty and the behavioral characteristics of managers significantly affect green technology innovation. Firms' green technology innovation is positively correlated with the success rate of green technology innovation, whereas is negatively correlated with perceived value sensitivity and loss aversion. (3) There is instrumental heterogeneity in the incentive effect of environmental regulation on firms' green technology innovation. The most effective tool is comprehensive environmental regulation, followed by punishment and then subsidy. The research provides a reference for governments to formulate environmental regulations and firms to manage innovation.

Role of Enterprise Alliance in Carbon Emission Reduction Mechanism: An Evolutionary Game Analysis

This study constructs the enterprise alliance game party, designs the mechanism for which the alliance and the government are jointly responsible for enterprise carbon emission reduction work, and explores the evolutionarily stable strategies (ESSs) of the government, enterprises, and enterprise alliance under the policy of carbon tax and carbon trading with numerical simulations. The results show that: (1) the ESSs of the enterprise alliance are always to give technical support to enterprises; (2) the carbon trading price below the critical value can mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises for honest emission reduction; (3) the carbon tax rate has a negative correlation with enterprise emission reduction behavior; (4) when the underreported carbon emissions of enterprises exceed the critical value, the enterprise will evolve into dishonest emission reduction. The high carbon emissions underreported by enterprises will mobilize the enthusiasm of the government to choose supervision. This study may be of certain reference significance to optimize the existing carbon emission reduction mechanism and achieve win-win cooperation between enterprises and government in the carbon trading market.

Knowledge domain and research progress in green consumption: a phase upgrade study

Green consumption (GC), as one of the important initiatives to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, has attracted widespread attention from scholars in environmental and economic fields. This article reviews the literature on GC, asking two main questions: how can GC research be analyzed from macro, meso, and micro perspectives? How have the research topics in the field of GC evolved in international and Chinese academia? This study makes a visual analysis of knowledge domain based on the literature of Web of Science Core Collection and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, so as to reveal hot topics, stage division, and research trend of GC research. The results revealed the following: GC research is in a period of rapid growth, and it is mainly distributed in developed countries dominated by the USA and in developing countries dominated by China. There is a trend of interdisciplinary research on GC, such as ecology, psychology, health, systematics, politics, and economics, which indicates that GC research has become increasingly inseparable from human survival and health, psychological acceptance, and social development. For the international academia, GC research pays more attention to the transformation of consumer psychology, while the Chinese academia is more concerned with the regulation of consumer behavior and the activation of green emotions. Considering the focus and characteristics of GC supervision, this study proposes GC 3.0 with a consumer-oriented and emphasizing green emotions and proposes future application scenarios from four aspects: government supervision, social self-regulation, enterprise demonstration, and personal self-monitoring.

Recognizability of Ecolabels on E-Commerce Websites: The Case for Younger Consumers in Poland

In the modern retail system, labels may be defined as silent-sellers which, if recognized and understood by consumers, may allow them to make conscious choices. This simple concern is particularly important considering e-commerce: it ensures customers to find nearly everything they demand without the need to exit from home; however, as shoppers are not in direct contact with sales-clerks, labels play even more a crucial role in the purchasing decision. Online shopping is increasing, notably among young people, and ecolabels represent for producers a tool to distinguish their goods and to provide consumers reliable and credible information about the environmental characteristics of their products. Despite the growing interest in the above-mentioned topics, research which investigate the recognition of ecolabels in online shopping by young consumers lack. To this purpose, the authors conducted an online questionnaire that was distributed to a sample of 559 young consumers who shop online in the most popular Polish retailing chains. Results reveal that online shopping is becoming increasingly popular in Poland, but only some ecolabels were recognized by more than 50% of respondents. This result is not correlated to the frequency of online purchases nor to gender. The recognition of ecolabels among consumers is fundamental.

‘To LED or Not to LED?’: Using Color Priming for Influencing Consumers’ Preferences of Light Bulbs

Recently, we have seen energy-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) light bulbs rapidly replace incandescent ones. However, results of new research are indicative of adverse health impacts of LED lighting, which is characterized by enriched blue light. Our study aims to reveal whether using color priming by attaching red/green traffic-light icons on light bulbs influences consumers’ preferences of light bulbs. We conducted a field study simulating the buying process, in which participants (N = 572) were presented with LED and carbon incandescent bulbs. We alternately displayed two pairs of bulbs: (1) in their original packaging and (2) in packages marked with traffic light icons (red = LED). Our results confirm that traffic light icons significantly (p < 0.01) increase the odds of choosing the healthier carbon bulb. The results highlight the benefits of attaching traffic light icons to light bulb packaging, helping consumers to make more health-conscientious purchasing decisions. Nowadays, this study’s contribution is more significant due to COVID-19 restrictions and stay-at-home policies, since people work or study remotely, which increases their exposure to household lighting. These results may incentivize policymakers to enforce adding traffic light icons to light bulb packaging, thus encouraging LED light bulb manufacturers to reduce the blue light component in order to improve the health aspect of their bulbs.

Supervision of the Default Risk of Online Car-Hailing Platform from an Evolutionary Game Perspective

Online car-hailing services are becoming a key component of the public transportation system, despite there being some certain risks, especially default risk. Turning to the evolutionary game method, this research constructed an evolutionary game model of online car-hailing platform, and then analyzed the equilibrium state of three scenarios (i.e., no supervision, internal supervision of platform enterprises, and external supervision of regulators), followed by carrying out a simulation. The results showed that to realize the evolution stability strategies (ESS) of default risk control, a strong credit constraint or the establishment of a coordinated supervision mode with appropriate intensity are needed. On this basis, this research puts forward the coordinated “platform enterprise + regulator” supervision mode, as well as the following four specific strategies: Promoting the construction of a credit system, strengthening the construction of laws and regulations, establishing a service process control mechanism, and introducing innovative regulatory means.

Does Massive Placement of Bicycles Win the Market for the Bicycle-Sharing Company in China?

The rise of bicycle-sharing stimulated companies’ investment in a large number of bicycles in the market. However, it is important to balance the massive placement of bicycles in the market and the company’s sustainable development. This paper is motivated to identify a strategic balance between market expansion and the sustainable development of the company. Based on the information asymmetry and evolutionary game theory, a tripartite game model was established for the government, enterprise, and consumer. This study identified five evolutionary stability strategies (ESSs) of these three parties under specific conditions by analyzing their decision-making behavior. The results indicated that the number of bicycles in the market placed by a bicycle-sharing enterprise was not directly proportional to its profit. The quantity of bicycles needed on the market was influenced by the government and consumers. It also found that government regulation plays a dominant role in the development of the bicycle-sharing company regarding the number of bicycles needed in the market.

Dynamic Evolution of Safety Regulation of the Ridesharing Industry under Social Media Participation

The emergence of ridesharing has spread against the background of the sharing economy. There have been a lot of controversies since the emergence of ridesharing, particularly regarding regulatory issues. The safety regulation of the ridesharing industry involves many parties, including governments, platform companies, and society at large. Currently, because of the influence of information asymmetry, it increases the uncertainty of governments’ regulation effect and the difficulty of making regulation measures. Meanwhile, social media, one of the most important forces of social regulation, has not paid enough attention to playing an appropriate role in the safety regulation of the ridesharing industry. Therefore, this study constructs an evolutionary game model between governments and platform companies that concerns the safety regulations of ridesharing passengers under social media participation. The influence path of social media is explored by model solution and numerical simulation. Our results indicate that social media participation has a positive impact on this safety regulation. Specifically, social media participation could reduce governments’ regulatory costs and encourage it to strictly regulate. The exposure of social media could bring losses to platform companies involved and promote platform companies’ investments in improving passengers’ safety. This study provides a decision basis for governments to introduce social media in the safety regulation of the ridesharing industry.

How Chinese Consumers' Intentions for Purchasing Eco-Labeled Products Are Influenced by Psychological Factors

This paper studies how consumers’ psychological factors influence their intentional purchasing behavior towards eco-labeled products and investigates why consumers choose eco-labeled products. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, we develop an extended model including six constructs. Among these constructs, consumers’ intentional purchasing behavior, attitude towards the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are applied from the original theoretical framework. Health consciousness and environmental awareness are integrated additionally to reflect consumers’ concerns about the natural environment and their health. Next, we conduct and analyze a survey-based empirical study with 336 samples using the Structural Equation Modeling. Our findings show that consumers’ attitude towards the behavior is positively influenced by environmental awareness, but the effects of it on intentional purchasing behavior are insignificant. Also, subjective norm has a positive influence on intentional purchasing behavior, but its effects on attitude towards the behavior are not significant. Moreover, the results also show that the total effects of health consciousness on intentional purchasing behavior are significantly higher than the effects of environmental awareness. Our results can provide a reference for business managers to attract consumers through eco-labeling as well as government policymaking.

Does Whistleblowing Work for Air Pollution Control in China? A Study Based on Three-party Evolutionary Game Model under Incomplete Information

During China’s air pollution campaign, whistleblowing has become an important way for the central government to discover local environmental issues. The three parties involved in whistleblowing are: the central government environmental protection departments, the local government officials, and the whistleblowers. Based on these players, this paper has constructed an Evolutionary Game Model under incomplete information and introduced the expected return as well as replicator dynamics equations of various game agents based on analysis of the game agents, assumptions, and payoff functions of the model in order to study the strategic dynamic trend and stability of the evolutionary game model. Furthermore, this paper has conducted simulation experiments on the evolution of game agents’ behaviors by combining the constraints and replicator dynamics equations. The conclusions are: the central environmental protection departments are able to effectively improve the environmental awareness of local government officials by measures such as strengthening punishment on local governments that do not pay attention to pollution issues and lowering the cost of whistleblowing, thus nurturing a good governance and virtuous circle among the central environmental protection departments, local government officials, and whistleblowers. Based on the study above, this paper has provided policy recommendations in the conclusion.