Blockchain Adoption in Green Supply Chains Under Government Subsidies: Incentive Effects of Revenue-Sharing and Cost-Sharing Contracts

Abstract

Blockchain-enabled traceability can reduce information asymmetry and strengthen consumer trust in green products, yet adoption depends on adoption costs and benefit distribution among supply chain members. We examine a two-echelon green supply chain comprising one manufacturer and one retailer, in which the government subsidizes the manufacturer’s investment in green R&D. We formulate Stackelberg game models under a benchmark setting, a revenue-sharing contract, and a cost-sharing contract, and derive closed-form adoption thresholds by comparing bilateral equilibrium profits. Blockchain adoption occurs only when the per-unit usage cost does not exceed the mechanism-specific threshold. Under mutual acceptance, product greenness and market demand both strictly increase. The manufacturer serves as the binding adopter under the benchmark and cost-sharing contracts, whereas the revenue-sharing contract aligns the adoption conditions of both supply chain members. Within the common interior-equilibrium region, the revenue-sharing contract yields the highest blockchain adoption threshold, followed by the cost-sharing contract and the benchmark setting. Within the interior-equilibrium region, a higher subsidy coefficient increases all three adoption thresholds by reducing the manufacturer’s effective green R&D cost. These results demonstrate how public subsidies and private contracts jointly govern voluntary blockchain adoption.