Promoting Port Emission Reduction: A Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis

Abstract

Port emission reduction (PER) has attracted more and more attention, and promoting PER involves multiple stakeholders. Therefore, based on the evolutionary game theory, this paper establishes a tripartite evolutionary game model involving the government, port enterprise, and port residents, to explore the key variables affecting the implementation of emission reduction measures by the port enterprise. It is found that, in the initial stage of PER, because of the huge emission reduction cost, the government’s incentive policies and the potential losses brought by port residents’ supervision are the driving forces to promote the port enterprises to implement emission reduction measures. In the intermediate stage and mature stage of the development of PER, with the development of emission reduction technology, the emission reduction cost of port enterprises will be reduced, and the incremental income after emission reduction will gradually make up for part of the input cost. At this time, the government can reduce or even cancel relevant subsidies and finally withdraw from the market, and the willingness of port residents to choose supervision will be reduced, then the whole tripartite evolutionary game has reached an evolutionary stable state. In addition, we also provide some management insights for policymakers based on the results of sensitivity analysis of relevant parameters affecting the evolution path of the tripartite game.