Procrastination and the non‐monotonic effect of deadlines on task completion

Stephen Knowles (), Maroš Servátka, Trudy Sullivan and Murat Genc

Economic Inquiry, 2022, vol. 60, issue 2, 706-720

Abstract: We conduct a field experiment to test the non‐monotonic effect of deadline length on task completion. Participants are invited to complete an online survey in which a donation goes to charity. They are given either 1 week, 1 month, or no deadline to respond. Responses are lowest for the 1‐month deadline and highest when no deadline is specified. No deadline and the 1‐week deadline feature a large number of early responses, while providing a 1‐month deadline appears to give people permission to procrastinate. If they are inattentive, they might forget to complete the task.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13042

Related works:
Working Paper: Procrastination and the Non-Monotonic Effect of Deadlines on Task Completion (2021)
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:bla:ecinqu:v:60:y:2022:i:2:p:706-720

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().