Are bonuses/maluses efficient to trigger the sales of 'green products'? The example of 'green cars' and the possible applications to telecommunications

摘要

A bonus/malus scheme is used to promote the sales of a "green product", the buyer benefitting from a bonus, and to hamper the sales of a not ecological product, which is in competition with it, the buyer paying for a malus. In principle, the two flows are balancing. We have modelized such a scheme thanks to game theory, using two methods: separate markets or partially substitutable products (price competition). It is interesting in the two cases to consider two kinds of sellers: 1. The sellers sell a single product, either the green product, either the not ecological one. The two favorable effects are achieved: an environmental gain (more units of the green product are sold and fewer units of the not ecological product are sold) and an incentive (each producer is incited to adapt his product to the ecological requirements to increase his profit, either thanks to a higher bonus either thanks to a lower malus). 2. The sellers sell the two products. Only one favorable effect is achieved, the environmental gain. There is no incentive for an obvious reason: if a producer benefits from a higher bonus, it is financed by him, since one has to increase the malus. His profit does not increase. In any way, there are other incentives triggering the adaptation of the products (to obtain fewer emissions of CO_2 in the atmosphere) in sectors like cars, in France, today, and perhaps soon household electrical appliances or telecommunications: 1. Social pressure (some part of Opinion being proponent of ecology) 2. Commercial argument (even, the customer can make economies if the product consumes less energy) - The certainty that soon the carbon which is emitted into the atmosphere will be paid at its fair price.