Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/144914 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2016/10
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper develops a strategic model of procrastination in which present-biased agents prefer to do an onerous task in the company of someone else. This turns their decision of when to do the task into a procrastination game { a dynamic coordination game between present-biased players. The model characterises the conditions under which interaction mitigates or exacerbates procrastination. Surprisingly, a procrastinator matched with a worse procrastinator may do her task earlier than she otherwise would: she wants to avoid the increased temptation that her peer's company would generate. Procrastinators can thus use bad company as a commitment device to mitigate their self-control problem. Principals can reduce procrastination by matching procrastinators with each other, but the efficient matchingmay not be stable.
JEL: 
C72
C73
D03
D91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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