Effect of the Fund Policy in a Remanufacturing System considering Ecodesign and Responsibility Transfer

This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the fund policy on ecodesign and manufacturing/remanufacturing activities and the effectiveness of the manufacturer’s ecodesign responsibility transfer strategy. It considers a manufacturing and remanufacturing system composed of a single manufacturer and a single remanufacturer performing under relevant fund policy. The fund policy is innovatively designed by considering three dimensions: tax, reduction, and subsidy. Based on mathematical models and comparative analysis, the principal results show the following: (1) the impact scope of either the tax or the reduction dimension of the fund policy is larger than that of subsidy. The subsidy for encouraging remanufacturing is effective only when the remanufacturer uses some of the collected returns for remanufacturing. (2) The impact direction of tax, reduction, or subsidy is complicated, changing when the remanufacturer uses some of the collected returns for remanufacturing. (3) The responsibility transfer behavior of the manufacturer does not change the impact scope of the fund policy, but changes its impact strength and impact path. The impact of the responsibility transfer strategy on enterprises’ decision-making varies with different remanufacturing scenarios.