Task scheduling and performance: Evidence from professional surf tournaments

Abstract

Task scheduling can have a major impact on performance and economic outcomes. This paper estimates the causal impact of time between tasks on performance using data from professional surf tournaments. It exploits exogenous variation in surf conditions and predetermined characteristics of the tournament to obtain contests between highly paid professionals that differ with respect to when they last competed. Results show that larger rest times cause an increase in the probability of success. These results are driven by surfers that lost in the previous round, suggesting that, following a bad performance, more time between tasks increases performance.