Default Options and Commitment Devices: Evidence from Chinese College Students

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Business, Management and Finance

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Default Options and Commitment Devices: Evidence from Chinese College Students

Jiayue Sun Mar

ABSTRACT: 

Despite the effectiveness, commitment devices are not widely applied in the real life. This paper tests whether and by how much default option affects the take-up rate of a commitment device that aims at reducing screen time usage for college students, as well as the effectiveness of this commitment device. I find that automatic enrollment in the commitment device ‘healthy screen time challenge” increases the take-up rate by 28%, and that the commitment device is marginally effective in reducing screen time usage.

keywords: default options, commitment devices, take-up rate and effectiveness.