Cooperative behavior in public goods game for emergency shelter resource reallocation

¹ School of Mathematics and Statistics, Northwestern Polytechnical University - Xi'an, 710072, China
² Shenzhen Research Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University - Shenzhen, 518057, China
³ Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Intelligent Game Theory and Information Processing at Higher Education Institutions - Xi'an, 710072, China

Received: 28 April 2025
Accepted: 1 September 2025

Abstract

In the post-disaster response phase, emergency shelters face challenges such as resource shortages, uneven distribution and psychological panic among victims. Promoting inter-shelter cooperation is crucial for efficient resource allocation. This study constructs a public goods game based on redistributing emergency resources and develops a redistribution mechanism. We define input coefficient for a shelter, extending the traditional binary strategy space representing the input or non-input resources. In particular, we examine post-disaster panic and leverage the prospect theory to quantify the psychological factors and find selfish participants with an input coefficient of zero. We explore the influence of selection intensity, enhancement factor and government measures on the evolution of cooperative behaviour. Simulation outcomes indicate that the government subsidy exerts a statistically significant positive influence on cooperative behavior within a defined range, outperforming government-imposed punitive measures. In addition, the mechanism undergoes adaptive calibration based on the underlying connectivity patterns observed in random, scale-free and scenario-specific networks.