The supervision game of economically motivated adulteration behavior of fresh agricultural product suppliers

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Economically motivated adulteration (EMA) of fresh agricultural product suppliers is a serious threat to public health. In this paper, considering the deliberate and concealed nature of EMA, the social benefits brought by the effective supervision and the "free riding" behavior of suppliers, we build a three-party regulatory game model composed of local governments, dealers, and suppliers to study how to reduce the EMA behavior of fresh agricultural product suppliers. The results show that (a) Since local governments cannot effectively reduce EMA of suppliers only by increasing the incentives, it is necessary to establish a complete reward and punishment mechanism. (b) The government and dealers can increase the cost of EMA by increasing adulteration penalties and improving detection methods so that reduce suppliers' EMA. (c) Compared with the inspection cost, the local governments' penalties for inspection failures are a decisive factor affecting dealers' inspection methods. When the local governments' penalties are strong, even if the cost of improving inspection is higher, the dealers will actively improve the inspection level. Our study shows that the tripartite coordinated supervision mechanism can effectively curb the EMA behavior of suppliers, thereby ensuring the quality safety of the fresh agricultural product supply chain.</p>