Evolutionary Game Analysis on Behavioral Strategies of Government and Residents in Municipal Household Waste Separation

Xueping Wu,Liping Zhang,Jianhua Huang,Wei Li,Yanhua Chen,Wenhai Qiu

doi:10.3390/su132011421

Xueping Wu, Liping Zhang + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011421

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Abstract

Municipal household waste (MHW) separation is a fundamental way to achieve waste reduction and a recycling economy. This study takes the positions of government and residents in MHW separation as the research object, and aims to explore the change process and influencing factors of their decision-making behavior, which is of great significance to attract residents to participate in MHW separation and establish an effective MHW separation mechanism to solve MHW pollution. This paper firstly establishes an evolutionary game model between government and residents in MHW separation; secondly, the payoff matrix of the system is determined, and the replication dynamic equations under different constraints are calculated to obtain the evolutionary stability strategy of the system, and the stability conditions are analyzed; Finally, through numerical simulation, the decision-making behavior of MHW separation and its influencing factors are studied, and the rationality of the model is verified. The results show that: (1) In the process of MHW separation, residents often choose not to separate without government regulation; (2) Environmental fee rates and government effort have great impacts on residents’ decision-making behavior; (3) The increase of penalty intensity can significantly drive residents to separate MHW; (4) The sensitivity of residents’ behavior decision to subsidy coefficient is the lowest among all the variables, and the incentive effect of increasing subsidy coefficient is not obvious. The research results can not only provide theoretical guidance for policy makers to develop waste management policies, but also provide valuable insights for local communities to guide residents’ MHW separation behavior.

Highlights

The continuous growth of municipal household waste (MHW) production and the corresponding environmental pollution problems have seriously threatened the sustainable development of various countries, especially China [1]
Based on the hypothesis of bounded rational economic man and the reality of MHW separation in China, this paper aims to build an evolutionary game model of behavior strategy between government and residents, and theoretically explore the impact of behavioral changes of government and residents on MHW separation
The results show that the behavior strategies of manufacturers are mainly affected by government policies. da Silva Rocha and Salomão [39] proposed an evolutionary game model to explore the interplay between corporate environmental compliance and enforcement promoted by the policy maker

Summary

Introduction

The continuous growth of municipal household waste (MHW) production and the corresponding environmental pollution problems have seriously threatened the sustainable development of various countries, especially China [1]. The amount of MHW in China has increased from 161 million tons in 2013 to 236 million tons in 2019. MHW has become the main environmental by-products of urban development in China, while Beijing and Shanghai, which are densely populated, have become “garbage surrounded cities” [3]. According to statistics from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, in 2019, the amount of MHW in Shanghai was 10.768 million tons, with an average of 29.5 thousand tons of MHW being produced per day. Shanghai has a population of 24.28 million and it has been said that each inhabitant produces 1.22 kg of MHW per day.

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