Time preferences, study effort, and academic performance

• We analyze the relation between time preferences, study effort, and performance.
• Impatient students do not exert significantly less effort.
• Impatience is associated with lower exam performance.
• Impatient students do not obtain fewer study credits during the first year.
• Impatient students seem to be of lower unmeasured ability.

We analyze the relation between time preferences, study effort, and academic performance among first-year business and economics students. Time preferences are measured by stated preferences for an immediate payment over larger delayed payments. Data on study efforts are derived from an electronic learning environment, which records the amount of time students are logged in, the number of exercises generated, and the fraction of topics completed. Another measure of study effort is participation in an online summer course. We find no statistically significant relationship between impatience and study effort. However, we find that impatient students obtain lower grades and fail final exams more often, suggesting that impatient students are of lower unmeasured ability. Impatient students do not earn significantly fewer study credits, nor are they more likely to drop out as a result of earning fewer study credits than required.