Charlotte Cordes

Abstract: Procrastination is often attributed to time-inconsistent preferences but may also arise when individuals derive anticipatory utility from holding optimistic beliefs about their future effort costs. This study provides a rigorous empirical test for this notion of  ‘motivated procrastination’.  In a longitudinal experiment over four weeks, individuals must complete a cumbersome task of unknown length. We find that exogenous variation in scope for motivated reasoning results in optimistic beliefs among workers, which causally increase the deferral of work to the future. The roots for biased beliefs stem from motivated memory, such that procrastination may persist even if uncertainty is eventually resolved.

Abstract: Despite questionable ethics and negative economic impact, favoritism is ubiquitous. This project investigates reliance on memory as driver of favoritism. In an online experiment, managers make incentivized personnel decisions. To causally identify the effect of the possibility to forget information, I vary whether choices are made based on recalled or actual quality of workers. To establish favoritism, I experimentally manipulate preferences for two groups of workers. I find that managers remember preferred workers as being of higher quality than unfavored workers. These distorted memories account for 39% of the increase in favoritism due to reliance on memory.

Abstract: Many people struggle to complete long-term projects, such as learning a new language or acquiring a new technical skill. Two major underlying frictions that prevent the completion of long-term projects are procrastination and forgetting. In theory, procrastination and forgetting can be mitigated with deadlines and reminders. However, for individuals who procrastinate and forget, only a deadline or only a reminder might not suffice to induce project completion. Based on a theoretical framework, our project empirically assesses the effectiveness of combining reminders and deadlines when multiple tasks need to be completed. We will conduct a field experiment in the context of agricultural education that will generate detailed data to study the effects on course progression, dynamics towards course completion, and learning outcomes.