Strategic Interaction Among Government, Enterprises, and Residents in Green Consumption: Equilibrium Analysis and Simulation Based on Evolutionary Game Theory

Abstract

Green consumption is a crucial pathway for promoting ecological environmental improvement and fostering sustainable economic and social development. Although policies have been continuously implemented and residents’ environmental awareness is gradually increasing, there remains a significant gap in the transformation from cognition to behavior. Promoting green consumption is a systematic project that requires deep coordination among three key actors: the government, enterprises, and residents. However, existing studies have mostly focused on interactions between the government and enterprises, paying insufficient attention to the long-term strategic interactions among all three parties when residents are incorporated into the game system. To address this gap, this study develops a tripartite evolutionary game model that includes the government, enterprises, and residents to analyze the intrinsic driving forces behind the development of green consumption, thereby extending the research perspective to multi-agent dynamic strategic interaction. Through mathematical derivation of the replicator dynamic equations and the Jacobian matrix for each party, this study finds that the system has a unique evolutionarily stable equilibrium point, namely a tripartite synergistic state characterized by active government intervention, green production by enterprises, and green consumption by residents. Sensitivity analysis examines the impact of changes in key parameters on the evolutionary trajectory of the system, providing parameter-level evidence for differentiated policy design. Simulation results indicate that efforts should be directed toward building a collaborative governance system based on government guidance, enterprise responsibility, and resident participation, so as to promote the transformation of green consumption governance from single-dimensional management to pluralistic co-governance.