[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-99-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Read This Paper Even Later: Procrastination with Time-Inconsistent Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Fischer, Carolyn

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract
Salience costs, along with imperfect foresight, have been used in previous studies to explain procrastination of a one-time task. A companion to this paper, "Read This Paper Later: Procrastination with Time-Consistent Preferences" analyzes the extent to which procrastination of a divisible task is compatible with rational behavior. While the fully rational model explains key qualitative observations, it requires an extremely high rate of time preference or elasticity of intertemporal substitution to generate serious procrastination and cannot explain undesired procrastination at all. This paper investigates the extent to which dynamically inconsistent preferences can better explain such impatience and address the issue of self-control failures. Two types of discount functions are presented, motivated by previous salience cost explanations. Hyperbolic discounting corresponds to a salient present; short-term discount rates are higher than long-term ones. A new form, differential discounting, arises from salient costs; utility from leisure is discounted at a higher rate than rewards from work. The model of a divisible task with delayed rewards generates clear predictions that can be used to distinguish between types. When workers have rational expectations about future behavior, both regimes induce self-control problems and sharper procrastination than standard exponential discounting. However, they have different implications for policies to induce work, reduce procrastination, and improve welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Fischer, Carolyn, 1999. "Read This Paper Even Later: Procrastination with Time-Inconsistent Preferences," RFF Working Paper Series dp-99-20, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-99-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-99-20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. A. Pollak, 1968. "Consistent Planning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 35(2), pages 201-208.
    2. Fischer, Carolyn, 2001. "Read this paper later: procrastination with time-consistent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 249-269, November.
    3. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 1997. "Doing It Now or Later," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7t44m5b0, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    4. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    5. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    6. Bezalel Peleg & Menahem E. Yaari, 1973. "On the Existence of a Consistent Course of Action when Tastes are Changing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 391-401.
    7. Akerlof, George A, 1991. "Procrastination and Obedience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 1-19, May.
    8. Martin Luckert & Wiktor Adamowicz, 1993. "Empirical measures of factors affecting social rates of discount," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, February.
    9. Schelling, Thomas C, 1984. "Self-Command in Practice, in Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 1-11, May.
    10. Laitner, John P., 1980. "Intergenerational preference differences and optimal national saving," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 56-66, February.
    11. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    12. George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, 1992. "Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice: Evidence and an Interpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 573-597.
    13. Schelling, Thomas C, 1978. "Egonomics, or the Art of Self-Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 290-294, May.
    14. David I. Laibson, 1996. "Hyperbolic Discount Functions, Undersaving, and Savings Policy," NBER Working Papers 5635, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tyson, Christopher J., 2008. "Management of a capital stock by Strotz's naive planner," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 2214-2239, July.
    2. Bart COCKX & Corinna GHIRELLI & Bruno VAN DER LINDEN, 2013. "Monitoring Job Search Effort with Hyperbolic Time Preferences and Non-Compliance: A Welfare Analysis," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2013006, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    4. Tyson, Christopher J., 2008. "Management of a capital stock by Strotz's naive planner," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 2214-2239, July.
    5. Ted O’Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "Incentives and Self Control," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001262, UCLA Department of Economics.
    6. Hammond, Peter J & Zank, Horst, 2013. "Rationality and Dynamic Consistency under Risk and Uncertainty," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1033, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    7. Jung Hun Cho, 2007. "Self-Reputation and Perception of Reputation," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp343, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    8. Minwook Kang, 2019. "Pareto-improving tax policies under hyperbolic discounting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(3), pages 618-660, June.
    9. Méder, Zsombor Z. & Flesch, János & Peeters, Ronald, 2017. "Naiveté and sophistication in dynamic inconsistency," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 40-54.
    10. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2002. "Addiction and Present-Biased Preferences," Working Papers 02-10, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    11. David I. Laibson, 1996. "Hyperbolic Discount Functions, Undersaving, and Savings Policy," NBER Working Papers 5635, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Raphaël Le Bouc & Mathias Pessiglione, 2022. "A neuro-computational account of procrastination behavior," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    13. Fabian Herweg & Daniel Müller, 2011. "Performance of procrastinators: on the value of deadlines," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 329-366, March.
    14. Venkataraghavan Krishnaswamy & R. P. Sundarraj, 2019. "Impatience Characteristics in Cloud-Computing-Services Procurement: Effects of Delay Horizon and Situational Involvement," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 961-990, October.
    15. de La Bruslerie, Hubert & Pratlong, Florent, 2012. "La valeur psychologique du temps : une synthèse de la littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(3), pages 361-400, Septembre.
    16. Breugelmans, E. & Campo, K. & Gijsbrechts, E., 2005. "Shelf sequence and proximity effects on online grocery choices," Research Memorandum 053, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    17. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    18. Philip Streich & Jack S. Levy, 2007. "Time Horizons, Discounting, and Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(2), pages 199-226, April.
    19. Nathalie Etchart, 2002. "Adequate Moods for non-eu Decision Making in a Sequential Framework," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 1-28, February.
    20. Chen, Shumin & Luo, Dan & Yao, Haixiang, 2024. "Optimal investor life cycle decisions with time-inconsistent preferences," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-99-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.