Procrastination, Academic Success and the Effectiveness of a Remedial Program

tProcrastination produces harmful effects on human capital investments and study activi-ties. Using data from a large sample of Italian undergraduates, we measure procrastinationwith the actual behavior of students, considering their delays in finalizing their universityenrolment procedure. We firstly show that procrastination is a strong predictor of stu-dents’ educational achievements. This result holds true when controlling for quite reliablemeasures of cognitive abilities, a number of background characteristics, family income andindicators of students’ motivation. Secondly, using a Regression Discontinuity Design, weinvestigate the effects of a remedial program in helping students with different propensitiesto procrastinate. We show that the policy especially helps students who tend to procras-tinate. Even though we are not able to identify the specific mechanism driving this effect,our results suggest that policies that are not directly aimed at handling procrastination canalso help to solve self-control problems.