Environmental Regulation and Green Technology Innovation: An Evolutionary Game Analysis Between Government and High Energy Consuming Enterprises

Promoting the green technology innovation (GTI) of high energy consuming enterprises is the key to solving the global energy environment and climate change problems. Government subsidy policy, as the main embodiment of environmental regulation, is the key institutional arrangement of GTI. It is of great significance to study the impact of government subsidy policy on GTI. This paper establishes an evolutionary game model between government and high energy consuming enterprises by using evolutionary game theory. The model describes the decision-making mechanism of the government and high energy consuming enterprises, and analyzes the influencing factors that affect the final strategy of the government and the firm through evolutionary simulation. This is a practice that has so far been overlooked in the literature. The results show that in the process of promoting the GTI of high energy consuming enterprises, the behavioral decisions of governments are influenced by environmental benefits, international reputation and associated costs. The behavioral decisions of high energy consuming enterprises are influenced by environmental benefits, environmental taxes and related costs. In general, the improvement of environmental benefits, international reputation and environmental taxation is conducive to the green technology innovation of enterprises, while the increase of related costs is not conducive to the GTI of high energy consuming enterprises. This study provides empirical evidence to support developing countries and emerging economies to effectively improve GTI in the process of environmental regulation. It is of great significance to promote interdisciplinary research and solve global environmental and climate change problems.