Our Observations

Our Experiment

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis was that there would be a straight correlation between the Self-Esteem Score of the participant and the initial share of the commons he would like to take.

Tools used

We used the Common Pools Game to run a simulation of the Tragedy of the Commons. The Common Pool Resources Experiment was made available by the prominent contemporary economist Charles Holt, professor of Political Economy at the University of Virginia. The experiment represents a multi-person game. Each person is supposed to choose an effort- a resource extraction activity.

Participants

The participant in the experiment were 15 of our classmates from Game Theory, all undergraduate students Economics or Business majors at Dickinson College. We matched them in groups of three, each group having its own resource pool. The groups were kept unchanged in the rounds though the players did not know who they were playing with.

Rules

Given that

individual effort=q group total effort=Q opportunity cost of effort=C maximum effort=E,

the players had to maximize their individual earnings, knowing that the earnings in a round will be

(q/Q)*(A - BQ)Q + (E-q)C

if A - BQ < 0, the total value is 0. Notice that this implies that when the players get too greedy, they won't receive anything.

The individual earnings thus increase when q increases, and decrease when Q increases. The participants were not given this knowledge implicitly but realized after several rounds.

Statistical Analysis

Important Conclusions

The Commons Game

Tragedy of the Commons Game

Self-Esteem Scale

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965)