ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
This article is part of the Research TopicSmartization and Resilience of Ports and ShippingView all 7 articles
Building Regulatory Resilience in Shipping: Green Technology Licensing and Carbon Tax Policies
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, Guangzhou, China
- 2University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
- 3City University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
- 4CIIC Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Beijing, China
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As global concerns over carbon emissions intensify, regulators worldwide have implement-ed diverse carbon tax policies, each shaped by specific environmental objectives and economic considerations. In response, shipping carriers have increasingly invested in R&D or purchased low-carbon technologies to comply with varying regulatory standards and maintain market competitiveness. Against this backdrop, this study develops game-theoretical models to analyze optimal technology licensing strategies for shipping carriers holding carbon-reduction technology in a competitive market. It further examines how regulators can set appropriate carbon tax levels to influence licensing behaviors under different policy objectives. Our find-ings reveal that when the implementing costs of the green technology are manageable, sole licensing can effectively align regulatory goals with carriers' profit objectives. However, as costs increase, the patentee carrier may gradually prefer licensing strategies that restrict the technology adoption to only the carrier with lower initial carbon efficiency, deviating from the regulators intended outcome. If the regulators goal is to maximize the adoption of green technology, it can realign incentives or achieve suboptimal outcomes by lowering carbon tax-es or offering subsidies. Conversely, if the regulator is more focused on social welfare, the most robust choice is to set the tax at a level that maximizes welfare under sole licensing conditions. Finally, we find that providing carbon tax discounts to carriers implementing green technology does not alter the decision structure but can amplify the advantages of sole licensing, resulting in higher social welfare.
Keywords: shipping, regulatory resilience, green innovation, Licensing strategy, carbonreduction
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shi, Lian, Li, Feng and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaozhi Feng, xiaozhi.feng@ciicmc.com
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