Present-Bias, Procrastination and Deadlines in a Field Experiment∗

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. We find that students display a strong demand for commitment in the form of self-imposed deadlines. However, deadlines appear not to increase task completion rates. Students who report themselves as being more disorganized do delay task completion significantly more. Indeed we estimate that the fraction of students displaying present bias in our sample is over 40%. Furthermore, we identify and estimate present bias and other possible behavioral aspects of students’ decision making by fitting the experimental data on both completion rates and failed attempts through a stylized stopping time choice model. The point estimate of present bias is high, close to 30% in our preferred specification. Present-bias appears however not to significantly affect behavior in the context of repeated similar tasks. This suggests various frame effects whereby repeated similar task activate internal self-control. Beyond present bias, our results indicate that other behavioral characteristics like over-confidence about the possibility of making mistakes ∗We thank Anne Stubing, Aditya Bhandari, Margaret Ford, Taylor McBride, and Daniel Vaughan for their excellent help with the experiments; Nicholas DePinto, Chardonnay Phelan, and Severine Toussaert for their research assistance; and Anwar Ruff for his programming expertise. We have received very helpful comments from Gary Charness, Chetan Dave, John Duffy, David Laibson, David Levine, Johanna Mollerstrom, seminar participants at University of Texas at Dallas, European University Institute, Harvard University, New York University, University of Barcelona, University of Pittsburgh and University of Maryland, as well as conference participants at the Economic Science Association and the European Economic Association. Thanks also to Dan Ariely for kindly providing us with the data regarding his seminal experiment on procrastination with Klaus Wertenbroch. Financial support from Southern Methodist University (Hyndman) and from the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics (Bisin) is gratefully acknowledged. †Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012. E-mail: [email protected], url: http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/bisina. ‡Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd. (SM31), Richardson, TX 75080. E-mail: [email protected], url: http://www.hyndman-honhon.com/Main/Kyle_Hyndman.html.