Government Subsidy Decision-Making for Waste Tire Recycling under the Coexistence of the Retailer and the Internet Recycling Platform

The low efficiency of the closed-loop supply chain in waste tire recycling has hindered the green development of China’s automobile industry. Additionally, the government subsidy decision has a huge influence on green development. This study focuses on a closed-loop supply chain system that consists of five members, namely, manufacturer, retailer, Internet recycling platform, and government. It aims to investigate the effect of the government’s subsidy mechanism on the decision-making process of recycling units, as well as to reveal the optimal strategies under different conditions. Under the coexistence of the retailer and the Internet recycling platform recycling programs implemented simultaneously by themselves, a two-stage Stackelberg game model is developed to explore the optimal government subsidy decision and the optimal pricing decision of manufacturer, retailer, and network platform in the closed-loop supply chain. At the same time, this paper investigates the effects of government subsidies on social welfare and the profits of supply chain members under different scenarios and then verifies the optimal government subsidy decision with MATLAB software through numerical examples and sensitivity analysis. The results show that the government subsidy coefficient is positively correlated with social welfare under four subsidy scenarios. To maximize the economic profit and social welfare of the members of the closed-loop supply chain, the government should appropriately select different subsidy objects within the range of different subsidy coefficients. When the subsidy coefficient γ ∈ [0, 15] and the government chooses consumer as the subsidy object, the social welfare will be maximized when γ > 15 and the government chooses Internet recycling platform as the subsidy object. It is recommended that the government directly subsidizes the Internet recycling platform. However, in order to maintain the manufacturer’s core position in the closed-loop supply chain, the subsidy coefficient for the Internet recycling platform should not exceed the critical value of 18. These results provide managerial insights for the government, manufacturer, and the third party to make decisions in the field of waste tire recycling. This paper presents the different subsidy conditions under which the government should appropriately select different subsidy objects. It also provides a theoretical and practical basis for improving the recycling efficiency of waste tires.