Administrative Subcontract in Chinese Atmospheric Environmental Governance-A Stochastic Evolutionary Game Analysis

Administrative subcontract is broadly used in atmospheric environmental governance in China. This paper attempts to demonstrate the effects and limitations of three factors in administrative subcontract, including strong motivation, result orientation and accountability mechanism, by establishing a stochastic evolutionary game model. Strategy stability and pollution treatment probabilities are discussed by constructing dynamic payoff functions of the three factors. The main conclusions are:(1)Strategies will become divergent under a strong motivation mechanism, the result orientation mechanism has greater stability, and the accountability mechanism the greatest stability;(2)the accountability mechanism itself will lead to low pollution treatment level, but when it is combined with the other two factors, it can not only help stabilize strategies but also help promote pollution treatment;(3)Combining the result orientation mechanism with the accountability mechanism is fit for high level governmental administrative subcontract, while combining the strong motivation mechanism with the accountability mechanism is fit for basic level atmospheric environmental governance.