Multi-Party Collaboration in Agricultural Green Technology Innovation and Adoption: An Evolutionary Game Approach

Abstract

The collaborative promotion of agricultural green technology innovation and adoption (AGTIA) is essential for achieving green agriculture. However, there remains a need to raise both innovation and adoption levels, necessitating explorations of the effects of government subsidies and collaborative mechanisms. To this end, this paper builds an evolutionary game model to analyze the collaborative promotion of AGTIA. By introducing relevant parameters, such as government subsidies for AGTIA, dividends and liquidated damages within industrial technology innovation alliances (ITISAs), and cost reduction coefficients, this paper explores the impacts of the technology spillover effect, price premium of green agricultural products, and government subsidies on the strategic choices of related participants. The main findings are as follows: (1) The key factors influencing AGTIA are different and the government can implement different combinations of dynamic and static subsidy mechanisms at distinct stages of agricultural green development. Government subsidies play a major role at the initial stage, while ITISAs should take fuller advantage of AGTIA as green agriculture matures. (2) Increasing subsidies can promote AGTIA at the initial stage. However, an optimal range of subsidies exists, and when subsidies are higher than a certain threshold, government subsidy willingness fluctuations may lead to decreased stability. (3) There is a threshold of liquidated damages within ITISAs. Only when liquidated damages exceed the threshold can they facilitate the development of durable ITISAs and discourage free-rider behavior. The above findings can provide theoretical support for relevant government sectors when issuing policies to promote AGTIA and agricultural green development.