{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,1]],"date-time":"2026-04-01T04:18:44Z","timestamp":1775017124458,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"Krasnoyarsk Science and Technology City Hall","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,31]],"date-time":"2026-03-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1774915200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["\u0418\u042d\u0423"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\u00a0Deadlines structure behaviour across many economic domains, including tax compliance, benefit take-up, education, and labour-market programmes. Standard models predict that action responds smoothly to incentives and time pressure, implying gradual acceleration as deadlines approach. Yet empirically, behaviour often exhibits long periods of inactivity followed by sharp surges of action immediately before deadlines. Using large-scale administrative data from higher education, this paper documents that action initiation behaves as a distinct, non-smooth behavioural margin. Exploiting repeated exposure to exogenously scheduled assessment deadlines with predetermined stakes, we show that initiation hazards remain flat over most of the available window and then rise abruptly in the final days. This generates extreme bunching at deadlines, weak responsiveness to higher stakes, and strong state dependence linked to prior non-initiation. A replication using large-scale online course data reveals similar late-stage acceleration near course endpoints. These patterns are difficult to reconcile with models based solely on smooth discounting, salience, or procrastination. Instead, the evidence is consistent with initiation being constrained by feasibility conditions that relax sharply near deadlines. We interpret threshold-gated initiation as one organising framework that can rationalise the observed regularities while emphasising that the analysis identifies behavioural patterns rather than a uniquely identified structural mechanism. The results highlight initiation as a separate economic margin and help explain why incentive-only policies often have limited effects on the timing of action in deadline-driven environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.47813\/2782-5280-2026-5-1-5001-5022","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,1]],"date-time":"2026-04-01T02:42:25Z","timestamp":1775011345000},"page":"5001-5022","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Why incentives fail to trigger action: evidence on threshold-like initiation from educational deadlines"],"prefix":"10.47813","volume":"5","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-6372-4852","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nikesh","family":"Lagun","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"27672","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"6352","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"DellaVigna S. Psychology and economics: evidence from the field. J. Econ. 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