Deadlines, Procrastination, and Inattention in Charitable Tasks: A Field Experiment

We conduct a field experiment to analyze the effect of deadline length on charitable tasks. Participants are invited to complete an online survey, with a donation going to charity if they do so. Participants are given either one week, one month or no deadline by which to respond. Completions are lower for the one month deadline, than for the other two treatments, consistent with the model of inattention developed in Taubinsky (2014) and also with the idea that not specifying a deadline conveys urgency.