Abstract: The sudden panic buying event (PBE) could not only cause social disorder, but also bring huge economic losses. Thus it is of great significance to study the evolution mechanism of PBE to clear its evolution direction and regulation strategies. In view of the fact that the existing studies rarely consider the subjective perception behavior of the public and the problem of multi-player game in sudden panic buying events, the prospect theory is first used to describe the perceived value of the public in the situations of benchmark and panic buying respectively. Secondly, the role of participants (i.e., the public and government) and their game relationships in PBE are defined, and the game payment matrix is given considering the perceived value of the public. Then, an evolutionary game model between the participants is developed, and equilibrium points and their stability conditions of this model are deduced. Further, equilibrium results are analyzed in combination with different evolutionary stages of PBE. Finally, the validity of theoretical studies is verified by taking the salt panic buying in China in the 2011 Japanese nuclear accident as an example. Afterwards the impact of the rumor-refuting effect of governments and the expected value of the public on the evolution of PBE are tested. The results show that the rumor-refuting effect of governments could affect the steady state of PBE and the time it evolves to the steady state. The expected value of the public could not only affect the emergence of PBE and the speed at which it reaches steady states, but also affect the number of people at any time in the process of eliminating PBE. The above results could provide reference for identifying the evolution mechanism and law of PBE and formulating regulation strategies.

Key words: perceived value, panic buying events (PBE), rumor, prospect theory, evolutionary game