Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93350 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7951
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper reports on a field experiment testing for sunk-cost effects in an education setting. Students signing up for extra-curricular tutorial sessions randomly received a discount on the tuition fee. The sunk-cost effect predicts that students who receive larger discounts will attend fewer tutorial sessions. For the full sample, we find little support for this hypothesis, but we find a significant effect of sunk costs on attendance for the 45% of students in our sample who are categorized as sunk-cost prone based on hypothetical survey questions. For them higher tuition fees can serve as a commitment device to attend classes.
Subjects: 
sunk-cost effect
higher education
field experiment
JEL: 
C93
D03
I22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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