The Common Resource Condition
Subjects’ Instructions
Welcome
This experiment is a study about individual and collective decision making. You may earn a substantial amount of money if you follow the instructions and make your decisions carefully.
The money you earn will be paid, in cash, to you at the end of the experiment. A research institute provides the funds for this experiment.
The Environment and Your Decisions
In this experiment you will make a series of ten decisions. Each decision you make will result in a cash return depending on the decisions that you and the other subjects in your group make. The sum of the cash return you earn in each decision round will be your total cash return.
You and the other subjects are randomly assigned to groups of five. The composition of your group will never change, and you will never know who are the other four members in your group. Your earnings will be represented by “points” during the experiment. Five points will be transformed to NT$1 at the end of the experiment. Each subject has his/her own Private Account, but all members in the same group share the Public Account together. Therefore, returns from the Private Account will only benefit self and returns from the Public Account will benefit all group members equally.
There are 500 points in the Public Account at the beginning of each decision round. In each round you will make a decision between two choices: withdrawing 100 points from the Public Account and withdrawing 0 point from the Public Account, which are also listed on the Decision Forms. If you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account, your Private Account would be increased by 100 points and the Public Account would be reduced by 100 points.
Please mark “Ö” on the top of the choice that you decide and turn in the Decision Form to the assistant. After all subjects having turned in their Decision Forms, the experimenter will key in all subjects’ decisions, then the computer will calculate your earnings and print out relevant information this round. The information includes: the round number, your subject number, your
own decision, number of members in your group withdrawing from the Public Account, your earnings from the Private Account and the Public Account, and your total earnings this round.
You may record the information correspondingly on your Earnings Report. The above procedure will repeat for all decision rounds. NOTICE THAT YOUR DECISIONS AND EARNINGS WILL REMAIN SECRET, AND NO COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER PARTICIPANTS IS ALLOWED.
The Private Account
If you withdraw 100 points from the Public Account, you earn 100 points from your Private Account, and the Public Account is reduced by 100 points.
Example 1. Suppose that you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account. Your earnings from the Private Account would be 100 points.
Example 2. Suppose that you withdrew 0 point from the Public Account. Your earning from the Private Account would be 0 point.
The Public Account
Your earnings from the Public Account depend on the total points that you and the other four group members withdraw from this Account. Each member in your group will earn 300 points from the Public Account if the total leftovers are at least or more than 300 points.
However, if the total leftovers are below 300 points, everyone in your group gets zero point from the Public Account.
Example 1. Suppose that you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account and that the total leftovers in the Public Account were 400 points. Your earnings from the Public Account would be 300 points. The other four members of your group would also get 300 points.
Example 2. Suppose that you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account and that the total leftovers in the Public Account were 300 points. Your earnings from the Public Account would be 300 points. The other four members of your group would also get 300 points.
Example 3. Suppose that you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account and that the
total leftovers in the Public Account were 100 points. Your earning from the Public Account would be 0 point. The other four members of your group would also get 0 point.
Example 4. Suppose that you withdrew 0 point from the Public Account and that the total
leftovers in the Public Account were 300 points. Your earnings from the Public Account would be 300 points. The other four members of your group would also get 300 points.
Example 5. S u ppose that you withdrew 0 point from the Public Account and that the total leftovers in the Public Account were 200 points. Your earning from the Public Account would be 0 point. The other four members of your group would also get 0 point.
Example 6. Suppose that you withdrew 0 point from the Public Account and that the total
leftover in the Public Account was 100 point. Your earning from the Public Account would be 0 point. The other four members of your group would also get 0 point.
Your Earnings per Round
Your earnings per round will be the sum of earnings from your Private Account and earnings from the Public Account.
Example 1. Suppose that you withdrew 100 points from the Public Account and that the
total leftovers in this account were 400 points. Your earnings would be 400 points.
Example 2. Suppose that you withdrew 0 point from the Public Account and that the total leftovers in this account were 200 points. Your earning would be 0 point.
WE NOW START THE FIRST ROUND.