WELFARE AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Implications: individuals are likely to be happier with defaults set to higher savings rates ; cautious paternalism: policy that allows for defaults to be set at automatic enrollment helps substantially individuals with self-control problems while inflicting little or no harm on individuals without self-control problems

On the other hand other commitment devices that consumers cannot opt out of (social security) has potential to hurt consumers with no self control problems

IS DEADLINE SETTING OPTIMAL?
Deadline setting: sets demand for commitment

The first result is that self-set deadlines indeed improve performance:
the first treatment group does significantly better than the control group, detecting 50 percent more errors (on average, 105 versus
70) and earning substantially more as a result (on average, $13 versus $5).The second result is that the deadline setting is not optimal: the group with equal-spaced deadlines does significantly better than the other groups, on average detecting 130 errors and earning $20. This provides evidence of partial naiveté about the self-control problems.

Answer: no? But previously set deadlines (as opposed to self-imposed deadlines) are more effective