Low-Carbon Innovation Decision Considering Quality Differences and Government Subsidies under the Three-Party Trading Platform

Abstract

In the context of low-carbon innovation, reasonable subsidy, innovation, and pricing strategies are important to achieve resource decarbonization and supply-demand matching, while the quality differentiation of resources has a significant impact on the strategy formulation. In this paper, we study low-carbon innovation and government subsidy in different innovation scenarios with two providers offering differentiated manufacturing resources on a resource trading platform, integrating two variables of resource quality difference and demand-side lowcarbon preference. Using utility theory and the Stackelberg game, a decision model of low carbon innovation and government subsidy is constructed, and the equilibrium solution is obtained with inverse induction. Then, the low-carbon innovation and subsidy strategies under different innovation scenarios are compared and the effects of relative coefficients of quality and innovation cost coefficients on the strategies are analyzed. The findings show that when the difference in resource quality is small, the level of green innovation is higher in the low carbon innovation scenario with high-quality resources compared to the low carbon innovation scenario with low-quality resources, and the rate of government subsidy for innovation investment is also higher. In case of the large difference in resource quality, the relative magnitudes of green innovation level and government subsidy rate for innovation inputs in different scenarios are related to innovation cost coefficients.