An analysis of government subsidy policies in vaccine supply chain: Innovation, Production, or Consumption?

2025-10-04

AI Summary

Vaccine supply chains suffer from inefficiencies and quality assurance challenges, necessitating targeted government subsidies as a key policy intervention. This study develops a continuous-time differential game model to capture dynamic interactions among manufacturers, distributors, and the government across technology innovation, production, and consumption stages. It is the first to integrate blockchain technology into the evolutionary mechanisms governing vaccine quality and firm goodwill. Key findings indicate that subsidies proportional to technology investment foster long-term quality improvement and sustainability, whereas procurement-volume subsidies yield greater short-term policy effectiveness under high price sensitivity. Furthermore, blockchain adoption significantly enhances quality control and increases manufacturers’ late-stage profits. The results provide theoretical foundations and quantitative insights for designing differentiated, context-sensitive vaccine subsidy policies.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Mechanism Design
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Humans and AI: Voting

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Blockchains and distributed ledgers
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Responsible Web: Technology governance, policy, and regulations

Abstract

Vaccines play a crucial role in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. However, the vaccine supply chain faces numerous challenges that hinder its efficiency. To address these challenges and enhance public health outcomes, many governments provide subsidies to support the vaccine supply chain. This study analyzes a government-subsidized, three-tier vaccine supply chain within a continuous-time differential game framework. The model incorporates dynamic system equations that account for both vaccine quality and manufacturer goodwill. The research explores the effectiveness and characteristics of different government subsidy strategies, considering factors such as price sensitivity, and provides actionable managerial insights. Key findings from the analysis and numerical simulations include the following: First, from a long-term perspective, proportional subsidies for technological investments emerge as a more strategic approach, in contrast to the short-term focus of volume-based subsidies. Second, when the public is highly sensitive to vaccine prices and individual vaccination benefits closely align with government objectives, a volume-based subsidy policy becomes preferable. Finally, the integration of blockchain technology positively impacts the vaccine supply chain, particularly by improving vaccine quality and enhancing the profitability of manufacturers in the later stages of production.

Problem

• Analyzing government subsidy effectiveness in vaccine supply chains
• Comparing innovation versus production subsidy strategies' long-term impacts
• Evaluating blockchain integration for vaccine quality and profitability enhancement

Innovation

• Continuous-time differential game framework for subsidy analysis
• Dynamic system equations modeling vaccine quality and goodwill
• Blockchain integration improves quality and manufacturer profitability