{% extends "global/Page.html" %} {% load otree static %} {% block title %} Instructions {% endblock %} {% block content %}

Please read the following instructions very carefully!

Imagine there is an owner of a firm, who lacks the expertise to run her company properly and therefore decides to hire an expert. The task of the owner is to design a contract between herself and the expert.

The expert can accept or reject the proposal. If the expert rejects the proposal, she will earn {{ Constants.outside_option }} and the owner will earn nothing.

If the expert accepts the contract and is therefore willing to run the company, she chooses her work effort. There are ten work effort levels that the expert can choose from, ranging from 1 (expert works very little) to 10 (expert works very hard).

The work effort determines the total return that is generated as a result of the expert's work effort. The higher the expert's work effort, the higher the total return, but also the costs the expert has to bear.

A contract offer to the expert now consists of three components:
  1. Fixed wage payment which can be between {{ Constants.wage_min }} and {{ Constants.wage_max }}.
  2. Expert's return share which can be between 0% and 100% (in multiples of 10%) and states the share of the total return which belongs to the expert.
  3. Desired effort level which is non-binding.

In this part, we refer to the "wage payment" as a "fixed wage payment" and it can also be negative, in which case the expert has to pay this amount to the owner. Furthermore, the owner chooses the "expert's return share", which indicates the share of the total return which the expert will get. The owner will automatically get (100% - expert's return share).

Example 1: The expert's return share is 0%. The owner gets the whole return and the expert does not get anything.
Example 2: The expert's return share is 100%. The owner gets nothing from the total return, while the expert gets all of it.
Example 3: The expert's return share is 30%. The owner gets 70% of the total return and the expert gets 30% of it.

If the expert accepts the contract, the earnings are as follows:
  1. Owner: (100% - expert's return share in %) x (total return) - fixed wage payment.
  2. Expert: (Expert's return share in %) x (total return) + fixed wage payment - costs of the expert's work effort.

The following table contains the costs and the total return from the expert's effort: {% include Constants.overview_table %}

Example: The owner offers a contract with a fixed wage payment of {{ 55|c }}, a return share of 50%, and a desired effort level of 6. The expert chooses effort level 3:

You can simulate the payoff consequences of various contracts by using assumptions on the expert's work effort.

In this experiment, you will make two decisions: Firstly, you will be the owner and you will design the contract. Secondly, you will be randomly matched to one other participant and given her/his contract offer and you will be the expert, i.e. you will have to decide whether you accept or reject the contract, and if you accept the contract you have to choose your work effort.
To calculate the earnings of this part, one of your two decisions, either as the expert or the owner, will be randomly chosen to be relevant. Since you don't know in advance which of the two decisions will be relevant for your earnings, you should think carefully about both decisions.

All your decisions in this experiment will be anonymous, so no participant gets to know the label of the participant they are playing with.

A short summary of the relevant instructions will be shown to you when you make each decision.

Please click on "Next" to design your contract as the owner of the firm. {% next_button %} {% endblock %}