The Non-Monotonic Effect of Deadlines on Task Completion

Stephen Knowles (stephen.knowles@otago.ac.nz), Maroš Servátka, Trudy Sullivan and Murat Genc

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

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 one week, one month or no deadline to respond. Responses are lowest for the one-month deadline and highest when no deadline is specified. No deadline and the one-week deadline feature a large number of early responses, while providing a one-month deadline appears to give people permission to procrastinate. If they are inattentive, they might forget to complete the task.

Keywords: deadlines; task completion; charitable tasks; charitable giving; inattention; procrastination; forgetting; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-08-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-isf
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