Refine
Year of publication
- 2023 (1)
Document Type
- Working Paper (1)
Language
- English (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (1)
We repeatedly elicit beliefs about the returns to study effort, in a large university course. A behavioral model of quasi-hyperbolic discounting and malleable beliefs predicts that the dynamics of beliefs mirrors the importance of exerting self-control, such that believed returns increase as the exam approaches, and drop post-exam. Exploiting variation in exam timing to control for common information shocks, we find this prediction confirmed: average believed study returns increase by about 20% over the period before the exam, and drop by about the same amount afterwards. Additional analyses further support the hypothesized mechanism that beliefs serve as a means of self-control.