Abstract:

Recent work highlights that identification of present bias using task-completion data is problematic. In this note, we add to the literature in two ways. First, whereas prior work considers single-deadline tasks, we consider tasks for which there is a series of deadlines, with incremental penalties for missing each deadline. Second, we also consider identification of forgetting from the same type of data. Using numerical examples, we demonstrate that identification of present bias is still problematic even when there are multiple deadlines. Identification of forgetting perhaps holds more promise theoretically, although in practice we suspect it too is problematic.