Collaborative Research in Individual and Group Decisions In Voluntary Collective Decision Making

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This proposal builds on and extends prior theory and experimental research related to the problem of sharing benefits and dividing the costs of providing a common good such as public safety or parks. A related question involves individual voluntary collective action when volunteering time or making voluntary contributions to charities. The theoretical foundation of the research rests on bayesian game theoretic equilibrium models on the basis of which predictions of the expected behaviors can be derived. The basic experimental method involves using human subjects in carefully controlled laboratory situations involving incomplete information and communications between subjects. Individual subjects are asked to make decisions about contributing and are informed exactly how much they will be paid by the experimenter, depending upon their contribution decisions and the decisions of others. The experiments explore individual voluntary collective actions under a range of conditions and will provide insights as to the different types of choice strategies which individuals utilize in these experiments.