Does Whistleblowing Work for Air Pollution Control in China? A Study Based on Three-party Evolutionary Game Model under Incomplete Information

Abstract

During China’s air pollution campaign, whistleblowing has become an important way for the central government to discover local environmental issues. The three parties involved in whistleblowing are: the central government environmental protection departments, the local government officials, and the whistleblowers. Based on these players, this paper has constructed an Evolutionary Game Model under incomplete information and introduced the expected return as well as replicator dynamics equations of various game agents based on analysis of the game agents, assumptions, and payoff functions of the model in order to study the strategic dynamic trend and stability of the evolutionary game model. Furthermore, this paper has conducted simulation experiments on the evolution of game agents’ behaviors by combining the constraints and replicator dynamics equations. The conclusions are: the central environmental protection departments are able to effectively improve the environmental awareness of local government officials by measures such as strengthening punishment on local governments that do not pay attention to pollution issues and lowering the cost of whistleblowing, thus nurturing a good governance and virtuous circle among the central environmental protection departments, local government officials, and whistleblowers. Based on the study above, this paper has provided policy recommendations in the conclusion.