Common pool resource experinment paper(Economics Game Theory)

ECON 450 – Term Paper Guidelines

Objective Your goal is to write a paper on one of the lab experiments you participated in. In the end, you are trying to summarize the general state of knowledge related to your chosen experiment with respect to this general line of research and contrast it with the data that we have generated in the lab.

You want to take the perspective of a researcher. Be creative and curious. You should organize your paper in the way that makes most sense to you. However, I would expect that your paper will cover most (not necessarily all and you can also add elements that fit your research question) of the following elements:

- The economic questions motivating the experiment - Description of the experiment, its design, theoretical predictions, testable hypotheses - Report key results of early experiments, further research conducted with it or with variations of it. - Are subjects behaving according to theory? Are there alternative explanations for those results. - Describe/analyze the results we have obtained in the lab - Compare/contrast the lab data with published research results. Did 450/550 students behave in ways

similar to real research subjects? If not, can you think of explanations for the difference? - Overall, what have we learned from this body of research? - Can you think of ways to use this experiment or modifications of it in order to study other aspects of

games theory or individual behavior?

The report is a group project. You need to be in a team of three (the only exception is if the number of students in the class is not divisible by three). Papers should be approximately 15-20 pages in length (excluding appendices, i.e. instructions or data), double spaced, typed using times new roman 12 point font and be set on standard letter paper with 1 inch margins!

Up to 25% of the paper’s grade can be lost for submitting a paper with poor written English. In more extreme cases of deficient english, the following calendar regulation will be applied :

Term essays and examination papers in any course will be refused a passing grade if they are deficient in English. When an instructor has reasonable grounds for believing a student lacks the necessary skills in written English, the instructor, in consultation with the English department’s Director of the Division of Academic Writing, can require the student to write an English Deficiency Examination, administered by the English department, the results of which will be binding, regardless of any credit the student has accumulated at UVic or elsewhere.(http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2017-09/undergrad/info/regulations/ evaluation.html#)

Part of the individual grade for the paper will be based on the team members’ assessment of individual contributions to the team effort. Each team member must separately hand in a sheet of paper giving an assessment of each team member’s contribution to the overall research and writing effort. These assessments will be kept confidential. Under exceptional circumstances, should there be important divergence between the team members’ individual assessments, I may request to meet with the team to explore the source of the divergence.

Data from the class’ experiments will be posted on the course webpage (in excel format).

Where to start

It will be essential to read academic papers on your subject. Experimental papers are not normally very technical. They often contain mathematical expressions of the payoff functions and the game theoretic predictions, but in most instances, you should have no problem understanding them.

The best place to find those academic papers is Google Scholars. In a typical first search, type your experiment name (say Cournot), “experiment”, and “economics”. This might still yield an extremely large number of papers. Refine your search further if necessary.

ALL RULES REGARDING PLAGIARISM AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY WILL BE STRICTLY APPLIED. HAND IN YOUR OWN WORK AND PROPERLY CITE THE LITERATURE YOU USE.