An evolutionary game for the behavior of third-party evaluators in pension public–private partnership incorporating public participation

This study analyzes the impact of public participation on the choice of third-party evaluators' behavior strategies during the service quality supervision process of China's pension public–private partnership project. An evolutionary game model between third-party evaluators and government regulators is developed, wherein the evolution rule of the two sides and public participation’s influence on their behavior under the two different conditions are analyzed, and a numerical simulation is carried out using MATLAB 2016a. It is found that third-party evaluators may choose the false evaluation strategy without public participation because of the inducement of rent-seeking or insufficient government punishment when the regulatory revenue of the government regulatory agencies is less than the regulatory cost. In contrast, in the case of public participation, the true evaluation strategy is chosen with an improvement in the level of public participation or an increase in reputation incentive. This suggests the construction and improvement of a third-party evaluation system, which shows that the construction of the service quality supervision system in China’s pension PPP project has a large operating space.