Research on the Tripartite Evolutionary Game of Zero-Waste City Construction in China

Xinpei Qiao, Hyukku Lee (), Qi Shen () and Yuchao Li
Additional contact information
Xinpei Qiao: Department of East-Asia Studies Graduate School, PaiChai University, Daejeon 35337, Republic of Korea
Hyukku Lee: Department of East-Asia Studies Graduate School, PaiChai University, Daejeon 35337, Republic of Korea
Qi Shen: Graduate School of Tourism & Festival & Hallyu, PaiChai University, Daejeon 35337, Republic of Korea
Yuchao Li: School of Economics and Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830002, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 13, 1-19

Abstract: The aim in mind in the construction of a zero-waste city is to recycle municipal solid waste in a more reasonable way in order to achieve the sustainable development of the urban environment. This goal is widely used internationally as a green development concept in urban management. However, when only the government takes the lead in the construction process, neglecting to engage and guide the participation of the public and of enterprises, the realization of a zero-waste city becomes challenging. Therefore, effective collaboration among all stakeholders would be a more effective approach to dealing with solid waste and creating an eco-friendly and livable urban environment. In this study, we adopted an evolutionary game model and selected three typical stakeholders—the government, the public, and enterprises—in order to examine the choice of tripartite strategies and their primary influencing factors based on prospect theory. This study found the following: (1) the selection of tripartite strategies at different stages of a zero-waste city’s construction is influenced by the expected benefits and costs; (2) the government’s leading role and related subsidies can promote the enthusiasm of enterprises and the public to participate in the construction of a zero-waste city; (3) tripartite participation in a zero-waste city’s construction can maximize benefits, and after a sustainable development model has been established, each stakeholder can choose to participate actively, even without government intervention; and (4) the construction of a zero-waste city requires long-term exploration and practice, and China is currently in a transition period from government-led to government-directed planning. Establishing a perfect reward and punishment mechanism is beneficial in promoting the active participation of the public and of enterprises. The authors of this paper studied the game process of stakeholders at each stage of a zero-waste city’s construction through prospect theory and explored the influences of important parameters on the strategic choice of each subject at the current stage by conducting numerical simulations, which has implications for the construction and sustainable development of a zero-waste city.

Keywords: zero-waste city; evolutionary game; reward and punishment mechanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/13/10507/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/13/10507/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:13:p:10507-:d:1186315

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().