This document provides instructions for participants in a decision-making exercise involving a public water supply system. It outlines: 1) There are two participant roles - Provider and Users. The Provider invests in and maintains the system. Users consume water and pay fees. 2) Users can either exit the area to access a stable water system, earning 10 tokens, or pay the Provider and receive variable earnings of 7-15 tokens if performance is high, or 5 tokens if low. 3) The Provider collects fees and can invest 5 or 15 tokens in maintenance. Earnings are fees minus investment. Investing 15 tokens generally leads to better performance than 5 tokens. 4) Performance and user earnings vary based

1. Instructions for
the 1st set of rounds

2. • You have an opportunity to earn some money by engaging in today’s decision exercise.
• Please follow all instructions—this may help the chance of earning more money.
• You will play in a group together with three other REAL people. You will remain anonymous.
• It is important that you complete this exercise until the end without interruptions.
• Please NEVER click 'Go back' or 'Reload' button. Please DO NOT close this window/browser or leave this
exercise’s web pages during the exercise.
• It will take about 45 to 50 minutes to complete.
Introduction
Your earnings ($) from engaging in this exercise
• You will earn $1 for watching the video instruction and taking quizzes.
• You can get $2 bonus for completing until the end.
• In addition, you can earn more! Up to an extra of about $14 by making decisions.
• The more TOKENS you collect , the more money you will be paid at the end of the decision exercise.
• Each TOKEN is worth 5 cents.
• Your earnings will depend on the decisions made by you AND the other members of your group.

3. • The Provider can invest in the maintenance of the system
performance. At the same time, the Provider collects fees
from Users who use the public water supply.
• Users can consume water delivered by the system for basic
necessities such as drinking, cooking, and sanitation, which
affects their benefit.
• The benefit Users derive from using the public water supply
depends on the performance of the system. The performance
of the system, in turn, depends on the Provider’s investment
in the system maintenance.
The basic model of the decision exercise
• This exercise mimics decisions people make in public water supply systems.
• There is a public water supply system that provides water to homes in an area.
• There are two types of participants that make decisions on this system: a Provider and three Users.
• Your role will be randomly assigned and will NOT be changed during the entire exercise.
• Some time ago, an unexpected event happened in the area.
• This event introduced UPREDICTABLE FLUCTUATIONS in the
performance of the public water supply system.

4. Participant roles & their decision options
Users are given 10 tokens at the beginning of each round. Users have two
options on how to use these tokens:
• Use the tokens to EXIT (or leave) the area and consume water from a
DIFFERENT public water supply system ELSEWHERE. This different public
water supply system DOES NOT experience fluctuations in performance.
• Use the tokens to PAY the Provider in the area and use its water service
“as is” despite fluctuations in the system performance. Thus, the
earnings Users derive from the system also fluctuates.
• You and three other players will form a group with two roles – one Provider and three Users.
• In this exercise, you will be randomly assigned to one of these two roles.
The Provider collects fees (tokens) from the Users who choose the PAY
option. At the same time, the Provider has two options on how much to
invest in the systen:
• INVEST 5 tokens or INVEST 15 tokens in the maintenance of the water
supply system.
 Choosing INVEST 15 tokens can lead to better system performance
compared to choosing INVEST 5 tokens.
• The Provider’s earnings in a round is the tokens remaining after the
investment tokens are subtracted from the collected fees.

5. The system performance and the net benefit to Users
When the Provider chooses INVEST 15 tokens AND two or more Users choose PAY:
The corresponding “net” benefit Users obtain will
also vary from round to round between 7 tokens
and 15 tokens. This is because the circumstances
force users to spend time and energy to
complement the public supply by purchasing water
from alternative private sources (i.e., bottled water
or water tanker deliveries). This additional expense
of the Users’ time and energy reduces their benefit.
The system performance will vary from round to round between 60% and 100%.
Otherwise (for example, the Provider chooses INVEST 15 tokens but only one or zero User chooses PAY, OR the
Provider chooses INVEST 5 tokens):
The system performance will be at 50% or below.
In this case, because the system performance is
lower, Users have to rely more on alternative private
sources to complement the public supply. As such,
Users’ net benefit is also lower, which is 5 tokens.

6. Summary: User’s decision options & earning outcomes
• At the beginning of each round, each User is endowed with 10 tokens.
• Each User then decides what to do with this endowment between two options: EXIT and PAY.
• First, if a user decides to use the tokens to EXIT the area and and consume water from a different public water supply
system, the user will obtain a fixed “net” benefit of 10 tokens. The obtained benefit is fixed in this case is because this
different public water supply system DOES NOT experience fluctuations in performance.
• Second, if a User decides to PAY to the Provider to use water “as is”, there are two possible outcomes:
1) When the Provider chooses INVEST 15 tokens AND two or more Users choose PAY, the system performance will
vary between 60% and 100%. When this happens, earnings will also fluctuate from round to round between 7
tokens and 15 tokens.
2) Otherwise, the system performance is 50% or below and a User will earn 5 tokens as his or her benefit.

7. Summary: Provider’s decision options & earning outcomes
• The Provider receives tokens from the Users who choose the PAY option.
• The Provider has two options on how much to invest: INVEST 5 tokens and INVEST 15 tokens.
• If the Provider chooses INVEST 5 tokens for the system maintenance, then the Provider’s earning will be the tokens
remaining after 5 tokens are subtracted from the tokens collected from users.
• Alternatively, the Provider can choose to INVEST 15 tokens in the system maintenance. In this case, the Provider’s
earning will be the tokens remaining after 15 tokens are subtracted from the tokens collected from Users.
• Note also that the Provider’s earnings can NOT be less than zero in this experiment.
Example (see the right box)
• Suppose that 2 Users choose PAY and 1 User chooses EXIT. Then, the Provider receives 20 tokens from the two Users
who chose PAY. If the Provider chooses INVEST 15 tokens, the Provider earns 5 tokens.
20 tokens (two users PAY & one user EXITs)
– 15 tokens (INVEST 15 tokens)
5 tokens (Provider’s earning)
Example
Provider
INVEST
15 tokens
INVEST
5 tokens
Receive tokens
Users
Decision Earning
All received tokens – 5 tokens investment
All received tokens – 15 tokens investment

8. Time Constraint
 Make your decision within 1 min
 After this, you will see a warning message for 1 min
 If you need more time, please click Continue and get extra 1 min
Please note that there is a time constraint for decision
making in each round.

9. Next, you will take a short quiz and play 2 practice rounds of the decision exercise.
After that, you and 3 other players will play the first set of rounds of this decision exercise.