Working Paper: NBER ID: w14228
Authors: Markus K. Brunnermeier; Filippos Papakonstantinou; Jonathan A. Parker
Abstract: People tend to underestimate the work involved in completing tasks and consequently finish tasks later than expected or do an inordinate amount of work right before projects are due. We present a theory in which people underpredict and procrastinate because the ex-ante utility benefits of anticipating that a task will be easy to complete outweigh the average ex-post costs of poor planning. We show that, given a commitment device, people self-impose deadlines that are binding but require less smoothing of work than those chosen by a person with objective beliefs. We test our theory using extant experimental evidence on differences in expectations and behavior. We find that reported beliefs and behavior generally respond as our theory predicts. For example, monetary incentives for accurate prediction ameliorate the planning fallacy while incentives for rapid completion aggravate it.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D10; D80; E21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| optimistic beliefs about task difficulty (D84) | procrastination (D29) |
| optimistic beliefs about task difficulty (D84) | underestimating time necessary for task completion (C41) |
| self-imposed deadlines (G14) | improved task performance (D29) |
| optimistic beliefs (D84) | self-imposed deadlines (G14) |