Evolutionary game analysis on behavioral strategies of four participants in green technology innovation system

Abstract To study the sustainable development of the green technology innovation system (GTIS), more and more people have begun to pay attention to the behavior evolution and strategic choice of participants. This paper develops a four‐participant evolutionary game model to study the interaction and behavior evolution of government, financial institutions, enterprises, and the public on green technology innovation (GTI), determines the payoff matrix of GTIS, derives replicator dynamic equations, calculates evolutionary stability strategies (ESSs) of participants, and identifies evolution paths of ESSs through numerical simulations. The findings show that in most cases, the government prefers to adopt “weak supervision” strategies to regulate the market, and the public prefers to adopt “supervision” strategies to supervise enterprises. Encouraging enterprises to implement GTI through subsidies and funding support is a vital means in the initial stage of sustainable development. It is imperative to establish a multi‐participant collaborative governance mechanism to promote the sustained and sound GTIS development.