关键词: 环境规制, 内部激励, 钢铁企业, 绿色转型, 演化博弈

Abstract: The steel industry is a pillar of China’s national economy and forms a critical foundation for achieving low-carbon transformation within the industrial sector. However, much of China’s steel production capacity stems from low-level and repetitive construction, characterized by large output volumes and the use of high-carbon production processes. This dual factor has led to persistently high carbon emissions in the Chinese steel industry. Driving the green transition of steel enterprises and reducing their carbon emissions have thus become pressing challenges that require immediate attention. Effectively leveraging external regulations and internal incentives to promote the green transition of steel enterprises represents a crucial breakthrough in addressing this issue. It holds significant practical implications for facilitating the green transformation of the steel industry and mitigating its carbon emissions.
The corpus of scholarly research, both nationally and internationally, has primarily centered on the mechanisms and efficacy of external environmental regulatory mechanisms in spurring the green transformation of steel enterprises. The effective utilization of internal incentives to facilitate the green transformation of steel enterprises remains an area that merits further investigation. There is a contentious debate regarding the ability of environmental regulatory measures to effectively incentivize steel enterprises to engage in green transformation, with existing methodologies falling short in effectively explicating the intrinsic mechanisms by which internal incentives propel the green transformation of steel enterprises. Given the pivotal role of governments and banks as economic agents in driving the green transformation of steel enterprises, this study incorporates steel enterprises into an evolutionary game framework. It constructs a tripartite dynamic evolutionary game model involving “government-banks-steel enterprises,” analyzing the strategic choices and evolutionary trajectories of these tripartite players under the dual constraints of external environmental regulation and internal incentives. It explores the policy intensity of the green transformation of steel enterprises under the dual constraints of external regulation and internal incentives.
To validate the effectiveness of the model construction and related conclusions, this study derives benchmark parameter values for the numerical simulation section by referring to relevant literature and real-world economic data. Using MATLAB software, we conduct simulated analysis to visualize the evolutionary impact of various parameters on the green transformation system. The results show that: (1)An increase in carbon prices, a decline in green credit interest rates, and government reward and punishment mechanisms can promote the green transformation of steel enterprises. Further research reveals that the guiding effect of market-based environmental regulations, including the carbon market, on green transformation diminishes, while the constraining effect of command-and-control environmental regulations, including green credit and government rewards and punishments, does not exhibit a significant marginal change trend. (2)Increasing internal incentive investment can stimulate employees’ innovative efforts, thereby encouraging steel enterprises to implement green transformation.
Based on the aforementioned conclusions, this paper proposes three policy recommendations for government policy implementation regarding the real issues of green transformation in the steel industry. First, the government should flexibly adjust carbon allowances according to different circumstances to influence carbon prices, thereby refining the mechanisms of the carbon market. Second, banks should adopt differentiated green credit management practices, raising the entry threshold for non-green transformation steel enterprises while relaxing access for those undergoing green transformations, and actively supporting the development of green projects. Third, steel enterprises should increase their investment in internal incentive costs, innovate in the forms of internal incentives, and stimulate employee participation and green innovation. This study provides theoretical and empirical references for coordinating external environmental regulations with internal incentives to promote the green transformation and upgrading of steel enterprises.

Key words: environmental regulation, internal motivation, steel enterprises, green transformation, evolutionary game theory