Beliefs as a Means of Self-Control? Evidence from a Dynamic Student Survey

Tobias König, Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch and Georg Weizsäcker
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Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch: HU Berlin and WZB Berlin

No 123, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: We repeatedly elicit beliefs about the returns to study effort in a panel survey of students of a large university course. A behavioral model of quasi-hyperbolic discounting and malleable beliefs yields the prediction that the dynamics of return beliefs mirrors the importance of exerting self-control, such that return expectations first increase as the exam approaches, and then sharply drop post-exam. Exploiting variation in exam timing to control for common information shocks, we find this prediction confirmed: average subjective expections of returns increase by about 20% over the period before the exam, and drop by about the same amount afterwards.

Keywords: belief elicitation; return to study effort; dynamic belief patterns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-25
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Related works:
Working Paper: Beliefs as a Means of Self-Control? Evidence from a Dynamic Student Survey (2024)
Working Paper: Beliefs as a Means of Self-Control? Evidence from a Dynamic Student Survey (2023)
Working Paper: Beliefs as a means of self-control? Evidence from a dynamic student survey (2019)
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