DEFINING BAD AND GOOD PROCRASTINATION

Often people procrastinate unpleasant tasks for immediate gratification in doing nothing today. Therefore many scholars have been engaged in designing incentive schemes to avoid it. We think the process is very complicated and many features need to be analyzed, as the subjective evaluations of the probability of success and rewards. In this paper we explore these factors and analyse under what conditions procrastination is a bad decision, with negative consequences or, on the contrary, it is the better choice. We also analyse a particular case of good procrastination, that is when procrastination may have positive consequences because people spend their time in alternative activities, useful for other ex post best rewarded tasks. We define this case as “productive procrastination”.