Procrastination is a highly interesting topic. In neoclassical economics, one key assumption is that individuals are rational. Now, given that individuals are rational, why do they procrastinate if procrastination is costly?
For those who do not know what procrastination is, it is basically postponing an activity you were meant to do now for a later point in time.
To model procrastination - a social behaviour - and translate it into economic terms (by this I mean using mathematical notations, such as set notation), we must note two sets of groups:
1. Whether costs and rewards are salient (i.e. immediate).
2. Whether individuals are sophisticated or naive.
These distinctions are important as they help to model when a person does an activity (and hence we see how long a person procrastinates for), given certain cost and reward functions (which are hypothetical).
The literature is rather extensive on this, with a lot of proofs. For those who are interested, have a look at:
1. O'Donogue, T. and Rabin, M (1999) 'Doing it now or later', American Economic Review. O'Donoghue and Rabin also have another article entitled 'Choice and Procrastination'.
If you are reading this post and are interested in modelling procrastination, shoot me a comment.
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