Why Do We Procrastinate? Present Bias and Optimism

Zachary Breig, Matthew Gibson and Jeffrey Shrader

No 13060, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Research has shown that procrastination has signicant adverse effects on individuals, including lower savings and poorer health. Procrastination is typically modeled as resulting from present bias. In this paper we study an alternative: excessively optimistic beliefs about future demands on an individual's time. The models can be distinguished by how individuals respond to information on their past choices. Experimental results refute the hypothesis that present bias is the sole source of dynamic inconsistency, but they are consistent with optimism. These findings offer an explanation for low takeup of commitment and suggest that personalized information on past choices can mitigate procrastination.

Keywords: real effort; beliefs; dynamic inconsistency; discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D15 D84 D90 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2020-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13060.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Why Do We Procrastinate? Present Bias and Optimism (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13060

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().