Managing Last Moment Behavior: Non-binding target dates to reduce the spikes in task completion at deadlines q

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dirkmaat, Thomas; Rohde, Kirsten I. M.; Veer, Evelien van de; van Dijk, Bram; Yu, Xiao
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Tinbergen Institute; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104813
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Deadlines; Delaying task completion; procrastination; Target date; Nudge; public policy

摘要

Many large governmental programs -such as census, tax returns, grant applications, subsidy applications -have to deal with large volumes of submissions that take place right before the deadline. To study how to alleviate the overload during the peak submission period, we conducted two field experiments in a national census that includes submissions from farming enterprises in the Netherlands (n = 28,557 in 2016; n =19,733 in 2017). The results show that setting an earlier non-binding target date for submission is a robust, replicable and effective method of nudging towards earlier submission. The treatments with non-binding target dates increased the probability of submitting before the peak-period by 4-5 percent-age points on average. Letting people choose their own non-binding target date was also effective, yet with a smaller effect size of 3 percentage point increase in off-peak submissions. Reminding people of early submission, early evaluation, and providing a checklist of information to help with the submission did not improve the timing of submissions.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).