Do Norms on Contribution Behavior Affect Intrinsic Motivation? Field-Experimental Evidence from Germany

Abstract

This paper studies how imposing norms on contribution behavior affects individuals’ intrinsic motivation. We consider the church levy, which the Catholic Church in Germany collects as a charitable donation, despite the fact that the levy is legally a tax. We design a randomized field experiment with treatments informing individuals that the levy is a tax. We demonstrate that treatment effects differ across motivational types. Among weakly intrinsically motivated individuals, communicating the legal norm results in a significant crowd-out of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, strongly intrinsically motivated individuals do not show any treatment response.

Keywords: intrinsic motivation, crowding out, charitable giving, norms, taxes, public goods, randomized field experiment

JEL Classification: C930, D030, H260, H410