Improving Recycling: How Far Should We Go?
用博弈模型分析竞争企业从原生或回收材料采购的互动，发现回收效率过高可能因减少原生生产而适得其反，对环保政策制定者有用。
Abstract We analyze, in a game-theoretic model, the strategic interaction between competing firms that source their inputs from either primary or recycled material. Because the manufacturers’ primary production today serves as input for the recyclers’ production tomorrow, manufacturers can limit the recyclers’ scale of operation by reducing their output. Improving the recycling process generates then two opposite effects: it reduces primary production tomorrow by exposing manufacturers to stronger competition from recyclers, but it also lowers the manufacturers’ incentives to reduce their primary production today. If primary production exerts a negative externality on the environment, then making the recycling process too efficient might be counterproductive. This intuition equally applies to remanufacturing.