Application Window Timing Decay

In Simple Words

Imagine giving someone 30 days instead of 3 days to complete a tax form. Over 30 days, the chance that they happen to have a high-energy, low-stress day and complete the form on their own increases significantly, reducing the extra value provided by an automated setup service.

Research question

Policy designers must decide whether extending application deadlines gives individuals more time to complete tasks. If barriers are caused by time-varying psychological initiation costs, longer decision windows allow control group candidates more opportunities to hit low-friction days, naturally eroding intervention effects over time.

Participants

N = 1,005,463 jobseeker-vacancy matches across 9,011 jobseekers in Lahore, Pakistan.

Study Design

Interaction analysis between phone-call treatment and the number of days between initial text alert and application deadline, controlling for quarter fixed effects.

Results

Each additional day between notification and application deadline reduced the phone-call treatment effect on job application probability by 0.072 percentage points (p < 0.001).

Takeaway

Shorten application windows when pairing notifications with proactive initiation support to maximize intervention efficacy before control group catch-up occurs.

Read alongside the research

Plain-English glossary

Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.

Percentage points

The difference between two percentages.

ExampleA rise from 40% to 50% is 10 percentage points. Relative to the starting value, that is a 25% increase.

Office for National Statistics · Percentages ↗Read more about percentage points →

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