How Supply-Side Policies Influence High-Quality Technology Diffusion: A Complex Network Simulation Based on Evolutionary Game Theory

Abstract

To examine the mechanisms through which supply-side policy instruments influence the early diffusion of high-quality technologies in technology markets, this study constructs a bilateral evolutionary model incorporating finitely rational technology suppliers and demanders based on evolutionary game theory and a bipartite small-world network. Through multi-agent simulations, the study analyzes the effects of government R&D funding, tax relief and technology transaction subsidies on the diffusion of high-quality technologies and the process of supply-demand strategy adaptation, with the aim of characterizing the role of public fiscal funds in screening for effective technology supply. The study reached the following main conclusions: First, under the baseline scenario, high-quality technologies exhibit a strong tendency toward endogenous diffusion, and supply-side policies primarily serve to accelerate marginal growth in the early stages rather than fundamentally altering the long-term convergence trend. Among these policies, R&D funding, as an ex ante incentive tool, has the most direct impact on early-stage diffusion; however, high-intensity funding leads to a decline in fiscal efficiency; Second, the independent effects of ex post incentive tools like tax relief and technology transaction subsidies are relatively moderate, with the former exhibiting high fiscal efficiency at low to medium intensities, and the latter exerting a moderate incentive effect by increasing the returns on successful transactions, though both suffer from diminishing marginal returns; Third, the supply-demand strategy fit index can be used to help characterize the supply-demand coordination process, but it cannot be directly interpreted as an indicator of technology quality or diffusion quality; Finally, robustness tests indicate that the main conclusions remain stable under perturbations to network topology, initial conditions, and Fermi noise parameters. Overall, the design of supply-side policies should simultaneously consider the timing of policy implementation, market-matching mechanisms, and fiscal cost-effectiveness.