Exploring the evolutionary mechanism of the cross-regional cooperation of construction waste recycling enterprises: A perspective of complex network evolutionary game

Cooperation and information sharing among various regional departments play a crucial role in facilitating the equitable disposal of construction waste across regions, fostering regional coordination in waste management. This paper establishes the complex network evolutionary game model of cross-regional cooperation of construction waste recycling enterprises, and conducts numerical simulation to analyze the strategic adjustment process of recycling enterprises under the coordination and complementarity of market mechanism and government mechanism, and explores the Pareto optimal conditions that are conducive to cross-regional cooperation of recycling enterprises. The result indicates that with the increase of the market scale of cross-regional treatment of construction waste, it can effectively improve the willingness of cross-regional cooperation of recycling enterprises. In the market mechanism, both the profit distribution and synergistic benefit have a significant impact on the cross-regional cooperation behavior of construction waste recycling enterprises, while the impact of spillover benefit is relatively minor in comparison. In various network scales, the profit distribution coefficients exhibit threshold values within the ranges of 0.3–0.35, 0.25 to 0.3, and 0.25 to 0.3, respectively. Within the government mechanism, the government subsidy coefficient falls within the threshold of 0.3–0.4. Notably, greater government support proves more conducive to advancing cross-regional cooperation among recycling enterprises. For small and medium-scale markets, there exists a threshold for default penalties ranging between 4 and 5. In contrast, large-scale markets have a default penalty threshold between 3 and 4. Imposing reasonable penalties for contract breaches can effectively stimulate the sustainable and consistent development of cross-regional cooperation among recycling enterprises. These findings establish a foundation for shaping cross-regional cooperation strategies for recycling enterprises, enhancing the efficiency of construction waste treatment, and fostering the coordinated development of urban areas.