Economics Webinar - Procrastination in Groups

In our study, subjects inter-temporally allocate effort across three different days. Each subject participates under one of three economic environments. In the Solo environment, subjects work for a piece-rate. In the Cooperative environment, subjects are paid a piece-rate for the average number of tasks their group completes. In the Competitive environment, the highest performer in a group is awarded a higher piece-rate. The average payment is equal across all three environments. Do subjects procrastinate equally under different environments? We show that the proportion of tasks completed on Day 1 is a non-parametric measure of present-bias, and find that this is lowest in the Solo environment. We also find that subjects complete the lowest number of tasks in the Solo environment.