Research on the Influence Mechanism of China's Waste Household Appliance Price Index

To accurately reveal the fluctuation logic and driving patterns of the waste household appliance price index and promote the standardized development of the recycling market, this paper adopts a full industrial chain perspective of waste household appliance recycling. It integrates transaction data from 64 formal recycling enterprises across 25 provincial-level regions in China and multi-dimensional public data, and systematically analyzes the influencing mechanism of the price index using the DEMATEL-ISM model and the VAR model. The results show that the influencing factors of the waste household appliance price index present a three-level hierarchical structure: the direct surface factors are the actual supply, actual demand of waste household appliances and the value of recycled materials; the intermediate transmission factors include 8 variables such as historical household appliance sales and willingness to participate in recycling; the deep-rooted fundamental factors cover 7 variables including industrial policy intensity and macroeconomic environment. 64.23% of the price index fluctuation comes from its own inertia, the contribution of household disposable income to the fluctuation reaches 17.97%, raw material prices exert a significant long-term driving effect, policy subsidies have a strong short-term impact but decay rapidly, and the negative impact of recycling volume on prices peaks in the second period and then gradually weakens. The findings provide a scientific basis for formulating precise regulatory strategies and optimizing resource allocation in the waste household appliance recycling market. JEL classification numbers: Q40, Q58, R11, O13, P12.