Development of EPC model in Chinese public projects: evolutionary game among stakeholders

Abstract

To promote the EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) model in public projects has become a key task of China’s construction industry reform. However, the behavioral and strategic choices of stakeholders related to the EPC model will affect its stable development. We establish a tripartite evolutionary game model of government-owner-construction company, and analyze the behavioral strategies and influencing factors of these stakeholders in the development of the EPC model based on actual engineering case data. The results show that (ⅰ) there are six evolutionary stable strategies, formed from different combinations of conditions. Among them, the strategy of government incentive, owner choice, and company upgrading qualification is the most suitable for the development of the EPC model in China; (ⅱ) the relevant parameters have threshold effects, which may affect the behavioral strategies of various stakeholders. Therefore, the standards of government incentive policies must be scientific and reasonable.