Why Don't We Sleep Enough? A Field Experiment Among College Students
This study investigates the mechanisms affecting sleep choice and explores whether commitment devices and monetary incentives can be used to promote healthier sleep habits. To this end, we conducted a field experiment with college students, providing them incentives to sleep and collecting data from wearable activity trackers, surveys, and time-use diaries. Monetary incentives were effective in increasing sleep duration with some evidence of persistence after the incentive was removed. We uncover evidence of demand for commitment. Our results are consistent with partially sophisticated time-inconsistent preferences and overconfidence, and have implications for the effectiveness of information interventions on sleep choice.
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Copy CitationMallory L. Avery, Osea Giuntella, and Peiran Jiao, "Why Don't We Sleep Enough? A Field Experiment Among College Students," NBER Working Paper 30375 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3386/w30375.Download Citation
Published Versions
Mallory Avery & Osea Giuntella & Peiran Jiao, 2025. "Why Don’t We Sleep Enough? A Field Experiment among College Students," Review of Economics and Statistics, vol 107(1), pages 65-77.