How to Reach a Regional Cooperation Mechanism to Deal With the Epidemic: An Analysis From the Game Theory Perspective

Abstract

The outbreak and persistence of COVID-19 have posed a great threat to global public health and economic development. The continuous economic deterioration has been intensified due to the continuous prevention and control measures, such as closed management. Insisting on the prevention of the epidemic or economic restart has become a dilemma for all countries. Epidemic prevention is not only the main behavior of a single country but also a common problem faced by all countries in the region. Continuous prevention measures will affect economic development, but an early restart of the economy is faced with the recurrence of the epidemic. To avoid the emergence of prisoner's dilemma in the governance of the epidemic, each country cannot make decisions with its optimization, and so it is necessary to build a regional cooperation mechanism to achieve the overall optimization of the economy and prevent the epidemic. Based on the game theory, we analyzed the behavior of countries when carrying out regional cooperation to govern the epidemic and put forward specific cooperative income distribution schemes according to the different attributes of the countries. Our results showed that in the presence of population mobility, regional cooperation to govern the epidemic can minimize the total number of infected people and maximize the overall utility of the region, which was significantly better than the overall benefits of the region in the case of non-cooperation. However, in detail, the smaller the difference of preference for preventing and controlling the epidemic between the two, the more likely it is to lead to a win-win situation. Otherwise, there will be one with damaged interests. When damaged interests appear, the appropriate distribution of cooperative income to the country with a small economic scale and low preference in preventing the epidemic is more conducive to the achievement of cooperative mechanisms and the realization of a win-win situation in the region.

Keywords: cooperation; game theory; income distribution; the COVID-19; the epidemic.