Operations Research and Management Science ›› 2023, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (11): 94-101.DOI: 10.12005/orms.2023.0358

• Evolutionary Game Theory in the Digital Economy Era • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evolutionary Game Analysis of the Seller’s Price Cheating Behavior on Remanufactured Products Based on PT-MA Theory

YANG Mingge, YANG Zhuo, LIANG Xiaozhen   

  1. School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
  • Received:2022-06-29 Online:2023-11-25 Published:2024-01-30

基于PT-MA理论的销售商再制品价格欺骗行为演化博弈分析

杨明歌, 杨卓, 梁小珍   

  1. 上海大学 管理学院,上海 200444
  • 通讯作者: 梁小珍(1984-),女,广西桂林人,副教授,博士,研究方向:物流与供应链管理,经济分析与预测。
  • 作者简介:杨明歌(1982-),女,河南洛阳人,副教授,博士,研究方向:运筹与优化,物流与供应链管理;杨卓(1996-),女,河北张家口人,硕士研究生,研究方向:博弈论,供应链管理
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金资助项目(11801352,71701122)

Abstract: Digital economy promotes the rapid development of remanufacturing industry, but it also brings a lot of data abuse and infringement. For example, in order to obtain more benefits, the seller utilizes the virtual and hidden characteristics of the digital economy to conduct the price cheating. The price cheating on remanufactured products refers to the phenomenon that sellers, driven by profit, spend a certain camouflaged cost to disguise remanufactured products as new products and sell camouflaged remanufactured products at the price of new products. This behavior not only seriously damages the rights and interests of the consumer, but also undermines the fairness of the remanufactured market. In order to protect the rights and interests of consumers and prompt the healthy development of the remanufactured market, we discuss the price cheating on remanufactured products in closed-loop supply chain, and explore its internal mechanism and solutions.
Firstly, considering the impact of psychological factors and risk preference on individual decision making, we introduce the prospect theory and mental account (PT-MA) theory into the tripartite game of the seller, the government and the consumer, and construct a prospect benefit perception matrix. To be specific, we replace the utility function with a benefit function to construct a traditional benefit matrix. On this basis, we divide the benefits of individual decision making into a valence function representing “gain” perception and a cost function representing “loss” perception. The valence function and cost function together constitute the value function of individual decision making.In the traditional benefit matrix, benefit functions, for example, income, with “gain” perception are included in the valence function, while benefit functions, for example, cost and loss, with “loss” perception are included in the cost function to obtain the prospect benefit perception matrix.
 Secondly, we establish a tripartite evolutionary game according to the principle of dynamic replication equation, and try to find the evolutionarily stable strategy of the system through Lyapunov first method. We analyze the evolutionarily stable strategies of the system and obtain the following results: i)The government always chooses to strictly supervise and remains unchanged. ii)When the value perception that the seller chooses to camouflage is greater than the value perception that the seller chooses not to camouflage, and the value perception that the consumer chooses to purchase is greater than the value perception that the consumer chooses not to purchase, “camouflage, strict supervision and purchase” are the evolutionarily stable strategy for the system. This situation generally occurs in the early stage of development of remanufacturing industry. iii)When the value perception that the seller chooses to camouflage is greater than the value perception that the seller chooses not to camouflage, and the value perception that the consumer chooses to purchase is less than the value perception that the consumer chooses not to purchase, “camouflage and strict supervision but no purchase” are the evolutionarily stable strategy for the system. This situation generally occurs in the middle stage of development of remanufacturing industry. iv)When the value perception that the seller chooses to camouflage is less than the value perception that the seller chooses not to camouflage, and the value perception that the consumer chooses to purchase is less than the value perception that the consumer chooses not to purchase, “no camouflage or purchase but strict supervision” are the evolutionarily stable strategy for the system. This situation generally occurs in the middle and late stage of development of remanufacturing industry. v)When the value perception that the seller chooses to camouflage is less than the value perception that the seller chooses not to camouflage, and the value perception that the consumer chooses to purchase is greater than the value perception that the consumer chooses not to purchase, “strict supervision but no camouflage or purchase” are the evolutionarily stable strategy for the system. This situation generally occurs in the late stage of development of remanufacturing industry.
 Finally, we study the factors that impact the evolutionary paths of the seller, the government and the consumer through numerical simulation, and obtain the following results. i)Reducing the valence reference point or the cost reference point can prompt the seller to choose not to camouflage. ii)Increasing the risk preference coefficient of the seller, the government and the consumer can prompt the system to reach a stable state of “no camouflage by the seller, strict supervision by the government, and purchase made by the consumer”. iii)Increasing the degree of loss aversion can prompt the seller to choose not to camouflage, and the government to choose to strictly supervise. Reducing the degree of loss aversion can prompt the consumer to choose to purchase.In this paper, a numerical analysis is carried out in the case of pure simulation and does not combine with the actual data of the reproduct market. In the future, we can collect big data of the reproduct market and use econometrics and data mining to conduct an empirical analysis. So we can improve the research on the behavior of relevant participants in the reproduct market.

Key words: prospect theory, mental account theory, prospect benefit perception matrix, value perception, dynamic replication equation

摘要: 数字经济在推动再制造产业快速发展的同时,也带来大量的数据滥用和侵权行为。例如,销售商为获取更多利益,利用数字经济虚拟性和隐蔽性的特点,进行再制品价格欺骗。这种行为不仅严重损害消费者的权益,还破坏再制品市场的公平性。本文研究闭环供应链中销售商的再制品价格欺骗行为。首先,将前景理论和心理账户(PT-MA)理论引入销售商、政府和消费者的三方博弈中,构建前景收益感知矩阵。其次,根据复制动态方程原理建立三方演化博弈模型,并通过Lyapunov第一法求解系统的演化稳定策略。最后,通过数值仿真研究销售商、政府和消费者的策略演化路径的影响因素。研究表明:i)降低效价参照点或成本参照点均可促使销售商选择不伪装;ii)提高风险偏好系数可促使系统演化至“销售商不伪装,政府严格监管,消费者购买”的稳定状态;iii)提高损失规避程度可促使销售商选择不伪装且政府选择严格监管。

关键词: 前景理论, 心理账户理论, 前景收益感知矩阵, 价值感知, 复制动态方程

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