Present-Bias, Procrastination and Deadlines in a Field Experiment / Alberto Bisin, Kyle Hyndman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bisin, Alberto.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Hyndman, Kyle.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19874.

NBER working paper series no. w19874

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

We study procrastination in the context of a field experiment involving students who must exert costly effort to complete certain tasks by a fixed deadline. Descriptively, we document a strong demand for commitment, in the form of self-imposed deadlines, which appear to be associated with students' self-reported psychological characteristics and cost of time. We structurally estimate students' present-bias and cost of time by fitting the experimental data to a stylized stopping time choice model. We find that present-bias is relatively widespread but that having multiple repeated tasks appears to activate effective internal self-control mechanisms. Finally, we also document an important form of partial naïveté on the part of students in anticipating their ability to self-control when setting deadlines.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2014.