Economic agents commonly use commitment devices to limit impulsive behavior in the interest of long-term goals. We provide evidence for excess demand for commitment in a laboratory experiment. Subjects are faced with a tedious productivity task and a tempting option to surf the internet....

This paper explores the possibility that demand for costly commitment may prove unnecessary and thus excessive. In an online experiment, subjects face a tedious productivity task where tempting YouTube videos invite procrastination. Subjects can pay for a commitment device that removes the...

Observing that people who wish to engage in prosocial behavior are often presented with more than one means to the same end, we develop a model in which agents may contribute to a single public good through a range of different activities. We use this model to make two points. First, noting that...

People can often contribute to prosocial causes by several means; for instance, environmentally friendly activities include sorting household waste, buying organic products, and donating to NGOs. Policy to encourage prosocial behavior is sometimes directed only towards a particular activity,...

We report experimental evidence on the voluntary provision of public goods under threshold uncertainty. By explicitly comparing two prominent technologies, summation and weakest link, we show that uncertainty is particularly detrimental to threshold attainment under weakest link, where low...

This paper explores the possibility that demand for costly commitment may prove unnecessary and thus excessive. In an online experiment, subjects face a tedious productivity task where tempting YouTube videos invite procrastination. Subjects can pay for a commitment device that removes the...