| Essay 1 develops a novel model of time as an exhaustible resource to assess the extent to which observed procrastination is compatible with rational behavior. When a finite work requirement must be completed by a deadline, the remaining time for leisure is fixed and exhaustible. With a positive rate of time preference, the optimal allocation of leisure time results in more hours spent working the closer the deadline. Key qualitative findings of psychological studies of academic procrastination are explained by standard natural resource results, suitably adapted. However, quantitatively, this rational model seems to require an extremely high rate of time preference to generate serious procrastination; nor can it explain undesired procrastination.;Essay 2 analyzes the extent to which time-inconsistent discounting can better explain such impatience and self-control failures. Two types of discount functions are presented, motivated by previous salience cost explanations. Hyperbolic discounting corresponds to a salient present; short-term discount rates are higher than long-term ones. A new form, differential discounting, arises from salient costs; utility from leisure is discounted at a higher rate than rewards from work. The model of a divisible task with delayed rewards poses a unique opportunity to distinguish between types. When workers have rational expectations about future behavior, both regimes induce self-control problems and sharper procrastination than standard exponential discounting. However, they have different implications for policies to induce work, reduce procrastination, and improve welfare.;Essay 3 analyzes the impact on exhaustible resource markets of setup or shutdown costs, a sparsely analyzed category of nonconvex production technologies. Although a planner would not want more than one firm to incur setup costs and produce at a time, sequential production of an exhaustible resource is conceptually compatible with competition. For a scarce resource, marginal social value exceeds marginal extraction cost, allowing for the possibility of nonnegative profits after setup costs. Competition may occur by timing of entry. This paper proves that, even under idealized circumstances, the social optimum cannot be decentralized in the presence of setup costs, for any utility and cost functions such that a planner would exploit exhaustible resource pools sequentially. |
