Game Analysis of Regulation for Online Prescription Drugs under Customer Feedback Mechanism

Abstract

Objective To study the way to better regulate the online sales of prescription drugs, and to provide reference for the adjustment of relevant policies since the online sales of prescription drugs has become an inevitable trend. Methods A game model was constructed for the strategy choice of pharmaceutical e-commerce platform, customers and government departments based on differential game theory and Nash equilibrium game model to analyze the pure strategy Nash equilibrium, Nash equilibrium dominant strategy of each subject and the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium under different conditions. Besides, Matlab was used to carry out simulation analysis. Results and Conclusion The study shows that: (1) Improving the credibility of the government and reducing the cost of government regulation can not only make the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform operate with high quality, but also give greater play to government functions; (2) The greater the influence of social evaluation on pharmaceutical e-commerce platforms, the lower the cost of high-quality operation of pharmaceutical e-commerce platform, and the greater the probability of customer choosing real evaluation strategy; (3) The greater the customers’ perception of potential risk, the greater the compensation, and the lower the cost of reporting. Then, the greater the probability that government departments will choose strict regulation. Finally, the model solution and simulation analysis are combined to provide countermeasures and suggestions for the safety regulation of online sales of prescription drugs.

Keywords

online prescription drug sale / Nash equilibrium / simulation analysis / mixed strategy game

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