According to the tragedy of the commons theory, drinking

According to the “tragedy of the commons” theory, drinking wells owned communally (i.e., freely usable by the public) will be used less prudently than personal drinking wells. Each drinker has incentives to deplete communal wells, because the water used would go to the individual drinker, while the detriments of overused wells’ reduced quality resulting from the depletion would be shared among all users. Yet a poll comparing 200 communal drinking wells with 400 personal drinking wells revealed that the communal wells were in better condition.

The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in calculating the importance, with respect to the “commons” theory, of the poll?


A) Were both communal and personal wells used by any of the drinkers whose wells were polled?
B) Were communal wells usually preferred over personal wells for drinking among the drinkers whose wells were polled?
C) Before either was used for drinking, were the personal wells polled of comparable quality to the communal wells polled?
D) Were users of communal wells polled as wealthy as the users of personal wells?
E) Did any herd owners use only communal wells, and not personal wells, for watering their herds?