Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185793 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 123
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, München und Berlin
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.
Subjects: 
belief elicitation
return to study effort
dynamic belief patterns
JEL: 
D90
I26
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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