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Some insights on procrastination: a curse or a productive art?

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The choice between performing a task today or procrastinating it until tomorrow or later is the building block of any economic action. In our paper we aim to enrich the theoretical literature on procrastination by outlining conditions for bad and good procrastination and looking at the special cases of pathological procrastination, the curse of perfectionism and productive procrastination. We discuss how our theoretical framework may be applied to explain different types of (education, investment and production) microeconomic decisions and which policy measures can be taken to avoid bad procrastination.

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  • Becchetti, Leonardo & Solferino, Nazaria & Tessitore, Maria Elisabetta, 2014. "Some insights on procrastination: a curse or a productive art?," AICCON Working Papers 135-2014, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:aiccon:2014_135
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    1. Avdeenko, Alexandra & Bohne, Albrecht & Frölich, Markus, 2019. "Linking savings behavior, confidence and individual feedback: A field experiment in Ethiopia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 122-151.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time-Inconsistent Preferences; Optimal Eort; Procrastination; Intertemporal Choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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