Parveen Akhtar

Student Name: Parveen Akhtar

Registration #: 278-FE/MS(ECO)2/F11

Topic: "DETERMINANTS OF CONTRIBUTION IN PUBLIC GOODS GAME: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS"

Supervisor: Dr. Asad Zaman

Co supervisor: Dr. Saima Mehmood

COMMENTS ON SLIDES:

Slide 3: Starts out correctly by stating a puzzle --- Theories based on selfishness predict certain type of behavior, Experimental evidence contradicts this behavior. It is possible to make this conflict more dramatic, which would be useful for presentation (but not so useful for proposal). Also graphically, the slide could be prepared better to center attention on the conflict. [but this is a minor point, regarding STYLE -- substance is fine]

Slide 4: again substantively correct but FORM and STYLE are wrong. First, you must LINK this to previous slide. Selfishness predicts lack of cooperation, but Observed Human Behavior is cooperative: All of the points are abstract and vague, and must be sharpened for presentation.

FIRST POINT -- rewrite as follows:

Theory predicts -- zero contribution for public goods, people will FREE RIDE

Observed behavior in public goods experiments: people almost always contribute MORE than zero. Cooperation is common, contradicting theory.

This is sharp, specific and provides information. To say that economists apply public goods experiments to study cooperation is very un-informative.

Social cooperation is crucial for achieving well being again this is vague and not informative. Better to say that: in Prisoners Dilemma games, selfish behavior predicted by economic theory leads to bad outcome for all participants. Cooperative behavior leads to good outcomes for all, and is widely observed, in conflict with economic theory.

Similarly for third point, it can be illustrated by some example to make it sharper and clearer.

Slide 5: Mentions three factors which lead to cooperation. This is fine and relevant IF you plan to research these factors. HOWEVER, at this point, and perhaps earlier, you need to state your research goals -- what is it that YOU plan to do for research -- FIRST. Then these issues from literature can be reviewed and CONNECTEd with your research topic.

Slide 6: States research objective and describes GAP. More or less correct, but could be written more clearly and precisely. Also, importance of topic has not been established. Sequencing is not correct. THis statement of objective could be put very early lilke second or third slide. THEN one or two slide to explain WHY this matters, and WHY it is important. Then lit review to discuss factors found relevant to creating cooperation.

Slide 7: Establishes importance correctly. BUT again this could be done better -- For example, mention Orangi Pilot Project as a case where a dramatically good outcome was achieved in providing a public good [laying down sewerage lines] by creating and utilizing cooperation -- considered impossible by economic theory.

Slide 8: describes a conflict correctly, but this should be done earlier, in introduction. NOW the priority should be in explainin What YOU plan to for your research.

Slide 9: This is correct but stated in a complex way which is not understandable to average audience. ALSO it does not explain relation to your research topic, it should be stated like this: I plan to conduct PUBLIC GOODS experiments, which is a way to measure cooperation. In these experiments, all people get a chance to contribute to a public good. Economic theory says selfish individuals will free ride and contribute zero. In real life this does nnot happen. We want to assess how much cooperation occurs and what factors it depends upon.

Slide 10,11, 12, 13 ,14: This is literature review and is relevant, BUT average reader will not understand connection between what you are saying and what you are planning to do research on. Therefore, it will be a mystery why you are saying this here, and what relevance it has. It would be better to describe the experiment you plan to do, and refer and cite this papers as explanation for WHY you plan to do experiment in a particular way.

Slide 15: States research objectives, which now show the connection between topics discussed earlier and your planned research. But it would be better to reverse the sequence and mention this FIRST. Then you can explain that you chose these factors, because literature shows that they are important. In course of discussing literature you could provide some more detail and information about how these experiments were conducted and how they proved their result (this will give a clue as to methodology being used in the literature)

SLide 16: Describes your methodology (correctly) but does not explain how this methodology will investigate the determinants you have mentioned earlier. Nor does it explain WHERE you got this methodology from, and HOW it compares to methodology used by others in your llit review.

Slide 17: Very UNSATISFACTORY description of an experiment you plan to run. It should be explained more clearly. We did not find out how this experiment would tell us the answer to your research questions

list of references -- this is not usually part of presentation. it is part of proposal. In presentation, reference are cited where needed within text, but not listed separately.

OVERALL evaluation: Reasonable presentation, could be improve in form. There are some missing elements towards the end. There should more explanation of WHAT YOU PLAN TO DO. and also HOW your experiment will answer your research questions, and ALSO how learning these answers will be helpful. WHY it is useful to do this research, what we will learn from it, and what would policy implications be.