Triadic evolutionary dynamics of air pollution governance among industry, the public, and government regulators

Abstract Industrial emissions are significant contributors to global air pollution, particularly with respect to PM2.5 and CO2 emissions. It remains one of the most pressing environmental challenges globally, driven largely by rapid industrialization and urbanization. Effective governance of industrial emissions requires coordinated action among multiple stakeholders, including firms, governments, and the public. While most existing studies focus on two-party dynamics—typically between firms and regulatory authorities—in air pollution management, our study introduces a novel tripartite evolutionary game model involving firms, government, and the public. A key innovation of our framework is the incorporation of public economic participation, modeled through a Cobb-Douglas production function, and the strategic use of voting rights as a means for citizens to influence regulatory enforcement. We develop a payoff matrix and derive replicator dynamics to examine the stability of strategic interactions among stakeholders, supported by numerical simulations. Our results highlight the pivotal role of reward-punishment mechanisms in incentivizing firms’ compliance with emission standards. Additionally, our findings reveal the synergistic effect of public economic participation and political pressure in environmental regulation.