Procrastination and Impatience / Ernesto Reuben, Paola Sapienza, Luigi Zingales.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reuben, Ernesto.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Sapienza, Paola.

Zingales, Luigi.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w13713.

NBER working paper series no. w13713

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2007.

Summary:

There is a large body of literature documenting both a preference for immediacy and a tendency to procrastinate. O'Donoghue and Rabin (1999a,b, 2001) and Choi et al. (2005) model these behaviors as the two faces of the same phenomenon. In this paper, we use a combination of lab, field, and survey evidence to study whether these two types of behavior are indeed linked. To measure immediacy we had subjects choose between a series of smaller-sooner and larger-later rewards. Both rewards were paid with a check in order to control for transaction costs. To measure procrastination we use the subjects' actual behavior in cashing the check and completing tasks on time. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that subjects who have a preference for immediacy are indeed more likely to procrastinate.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2007.