EWOT Thirteen

On the recitation this week, we played the the public-private account game. I think it was a really interesting game. To be honest, I was one of the mean guys who put 20 tokens in private account every round. Why did I do this?　Because I see no reason why I shouldn't have done this way. It was just simple calculation: Every round I gain the same income from public account as every body does in the classroom, so the only difference between my total income and others is my gain from private account. As a result, to make sure that I gain more income than others, I put 20 tokens in private account.

However, we have to notice that, although put 20 tokens in private account seems to be the dominant strategy, this is so because our goal is to get higher income than everybody else. It is true that if everybody put all tokens in the public account, we get the highest income, but all same income actually no income at all. I think people who put 20 tokens in public account should not be accused mean. On the contrary, their behavior is reasonably justifiable.  In this case, 20-0 combination is the dominant strategy, any rational people who well realized what's going on will surly make this decision.