Tripartite Evolutionary Game and Simulation Analysis of Coal Mining Safe Production Supervision under the Chinese Central Government’s Reward and Punishment Mechanism

Abstract

In recent years, although coal mine accidents in China have decreased, they still occur frequently. Most previous studies on the evolutionary game of safety mining are limited to a focus on system dynamics and two-party game problems and lack a spatial graphic analysis of strategy evolution. The parameters adopted are too few, and the influencing factors considered are too simple. The purpose of the paper is to introduce more parameters to study which will have an important impact on the strategy choices of participants and the evolution path of the strategy over time. We construct a tripartite evolutionary game model of coal mining enterprises, local governments, and central governments. As our method, a payment matrix of participants and replicated dynamic equations is established, and we also implement parameter simulation in MATLAB. In summary, we found that the reward and punishment mechanism plays an important role in safe coal mining. Specifically, (1) intensifying rewards and penalties for coal mining enterprises and local governments will help encourage coal mining enterprises to implement safe production measures and local governments to implement central government safety supervision policies. However, increased rewards will reduce central government’s willingness to adopt incentive strategies. (2) The central government’s reward for coal mining enterprises’ safe production must be greater than the increased cost of safe production to encourage enterprises to implement such production. Economic incentives for local governments must be greater than the benefits of rent-seeking; only then will local governments choose to strictly implement supervision policies. (3) Increasing sales revenue and rent-seeking costs of coal mining enterprises can also encourage them to implement safe production. Therefore, a well-designed reward and punishment mechanism will change the behaviour of coal enterprises and improve the probability of safe production. The research presented in this paper further works on improving safe coal mining production and designing reasonable reward and punishment mechanisms.