City Research Online

Abstract

This paper develops a strategic model of procrastination in which present-biased agents prefer to perform an onerous task with someone else. This turns their decision of when to perform the task into a procrastination game—a dynamic coordination game between present-biased players. The model characterizes the conditions under which interaction mitigates or exacerbates procrastination. A procrastinator matched with a worse procrastinator may perform 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.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Authors. Economic Inquiry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Western Economic Association International. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Economics

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