Designing an intervention strategy for public-interest goods: The California electric vehicle market case

Abstract

We study the intervention problem for public-interest goods. Public-interest goods are known as goods with positive externalities, allowing the consumer as well as others who do not pay for them benefit from the consumption. Health related goods, such as vaccines, or products with less carbon emissions are well known examples. We consider a supply chain for such a product. Generally, wider adoption or usage of such goods is ensured by the intervention of a central authority in their supply chain. We explore the problem for a setting composed of a retailer and a central authority. The main goal of the central authority is to design and fund an intervention scheme so that decisions of the channel are in line with the good of society, specified as a social welfare function. We propose two intervention tools applied simultaneously: (1) investing in demand-increasing strategies, which affects the level of the stochastic demand in the market; and (2) rebates that affect revenue per unit received by the retailer. We introduce a model that determines a utility maximizing intervention scheme and further investigate the model. We also present two decentralized approaches as benchmarks. Finally, we conduct a case study for California׳s electric vehicle market and validate our findings by a detailed analysis of the results, including comparisons with the current practice.