[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-1-en-105":3,"doc-seo-281646-105":53,"doc-detail-281646-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49],{"id":8,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":11,"show_sort_weight":12,"slug":13},11,1,"Template","Presentations",90,"presentations",{"id":15,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":16,"show_sort_weight":17,"slug":18},12,"Resumes",80,"resumes",{"id":20,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":21,"show_sort_weight":22,"slug":23},14,"Invoices",70,"invoices",{"id":25,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":26,"show_sort_weight":27,"slug":28},15,"Posters",60,"posters",{"id":30,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":31,"show_sort_weight":32,"slug":33},16,"Social Media",50,"social-media",{"id":35,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":36,"show_sort_weight":37,"slug":38},17,"Forms",40,"forms",{"id":40,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":41,"show_sort_weight":42,"slug":43},18,"Letters",30,"letters",{"id":45,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":46,"show_sort_weight":47,"slug":48},21,"Paper Templates",5,"papers-templates",{"id":50,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":51,"show_sort_weight":4,"slug":52},158,"General","general-158",{"code":4,"msg":54,"data":55},"ok",{"site_id":56,"language":57,"slug":58,"title":59,"keywords":60,"description":61,"schema_data":62,"social_meta":119,"head_meta":121,"extra_data":123,"updated_unix":125},105,"en","do-taxes-crowd-out-intrinsic-motivation-field-experimental-evidence-from-germany","Do Taxes Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation? - Field-Experimental Evidence from Germany","","This paper investigates how imposing norms on contribution behavior affects individuals’ intrinsic motivation. The study focuses on the German Catholic church levy, which is legally a tax but collected as a charitable donation. Using a randomized field experiment, participants receive messages clarifying whether the levy is treated as a tax. Results show effects differ by motivational type: weakly intrinsically motivated individuals exhibit a significant crowd-out of intrinsic motivation, while strongly intrinsically motivated individuals show no response to the treatments.",{"@graph":63,"@context":118},[64,80,101],{"@type":65,"itemListElement":66},"BreadcrumbList",[67,71,74,77],{"item":68,"name":69,"@type":70,"position":9},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":72,"name":10,"@type":70,"position":73},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/",2,{"item":75,"name":11,"@type":70,"position":76},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/presentations/",3,{"item":78,"name":59,"@type":70,"position":79},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/do-taxes-crowd-out-intrinsic-motivation-field-experimental-evidence-from-germany/281646/",4,{"url":78,"name":59,"@type":81,"image":82,"author":87,"headline":59,"publisher":90,"fileFormat":93,"inLanguage":57,"description":61,"dateModified":94,"datePublished":95,"encodingFormat":93,"isAccessibleForFree":96,"interactionStatistic":97},"DigitalDocument",{"url":83,"@type":84,"width":85,"height":86},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/do-taxes-crowd-out-intrinsic-motivation-field-experimental-evidence-from-germany/281646.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":88,"@type":89},"Gelato","Person",{"url":68,"name":91,"@type":92},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-09-16",true,{"@type":98,"interactionType":99,"userInteractionCount":76},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":100},"ViewAction",{"@type":102,"mainEntity":103},"FAQPage",[104,110,114],{"name":105,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":107},"What is the main question of the paper?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"How imposing norms on contribution behavior—specifically communicating a levy as a tax—affects individuals’ intrinsic motivation.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"Why is the German church levy used in the study?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"It is collected as a charitable donation but is legally a tax, allowing the experiment to test how different framings of the same payment obligation change behavior.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What does the study find about weak vs. strong intrinsic motivation?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"Weakly intrinsically motivated individuals show a significant crowd-out of intrinsic motivation when the levy is communicated as a legal norm, whereas strongly intrinsically motivated individuals show no treatment response.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},281646,1792225931,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":8,"category_name":11,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":76,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":140,"read_time":141},19241457091524,"https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Do Taxes Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation?  \nField-Experimental Evidence from Germany Pierre C. Boyer, Nadja Dwenger, Johannes Rincke 􀀃  \nMay 4, 2015  \nAbstract  \nThis paper studies how imposing norms on contribution behavior a􀀋ects individuals' intrinsic motivation. We consider the church levy, which the Catholic Church in Germany collects asa charitable donation, despite the fact that the levy is legally a tax. We design a randomized 􀀌eld experiment with treatments informing individuals that the levy is a tax. Guided by a theoretical model, we demonstrate that treatment e􀀋ects di􀀋er across motivational types. Among weakly intrinsically motivated individuals, communicating a legal norm results in asigni􀀌cant crowd-out of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, strongly intrinsically motivated individuals do not show any treatment response.  \nJEL Codes: C93, D03, H26, H41  \nKeywords: intrinsic motivation, crowding out, charitable giving, taxes, public goods, randomized 􀀌eld experiment  \n􀀃 Boyer: University of Mannheim (e-mail: [pierre.boyer@uni-mannheim.de](pierre.boyer@uni-mannheim.de)); Dwenger: Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance (e-mail: [nadja.dwenger@tax.mpg.de](nadja.dwenger@tax.mpg.de)); Rincke: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (e[mail: johannes.rincke@fau.de](mail: johannes.rincke@fau.de)). We thank Armin Falk, David Hu􀀋man, John List, Emmanuel Saez, Monica Singhal, Mich􀀒ele Tertilt, Christian Traxler and numerous seminar participants for useful comments. We are grateful for 􀀌nancial support from the Schoeller Foundation and the Emerging Field Initiative of the University of ErlangenNuremberg. All errors remain our own.  \n1 Introduction  \nHow do external incentives a􀀋ect behavior? For a long time economists have focused on how external incentives shape individuals' extrinsic motivation. More recently, they have started to integrate into their models the view that external incentives can actually back􀀌re by crowding out individuals' intrinsic motivation (B􀀓enabou and Tirole, 2003, 2006; Sliwka, 2007) .1 So far, the experimental literature on the extrinsic-intrinsic crowd-out has produced mixed results (see Gneezy et al. 2011 for a survey) . Gneezy and Rustichini (2000a) 􀀌nd that small monetary incentives impair individuals' intrinsic motivation, and Falk and Kosfeld (2006) demonstrate that agents tend to reduce their e􀀋ort in response to a principal's decision to control their performance. In contrast, Lacetera et al. (2012), Ashraf et al. (2012), and Chetty et al. (2014) conclude that even in the case of small monetary rewards, any potential crowd-out is dominated by the positive e􀀋ect of the external incentive.2  \nThis paper adds to the existing literature in two important dimensions. First, while most previous 􀀌eld work on the extrinsic-intrinsic crowd-out has considered the e􀀋ects of (monetary) rewards, we focus on the role of taxes as externally imposed norms on contribution behavior, as opposed to voluntary contributions. Second, we consider a setting where we can very accurately measure individuals' initial strength of intrinsic motivation. This allows us to study heterogenous responses across di􀀋erent motivational types when voluntary contributions are transformed into compulsory tax payments (and vice versa) .  \nWe implement our research design in the context of the local church levy in Germany, an institutional setting ideally suited to study how taxes a􀀋ect individuals' intrinsic motivation. We focus on an urban area in Bavaria where the Catholic Church has always collected the local church levy as a charitable donation on a purely voluntary basis, despite the fact that the church levy is legally a tax on all church members.3 Starting from a pure voluntary-giving baseline without any external incentives, we conduct a randomized 􀀌eld experiment with letter treatments informing individuals that the church levy is in fact a tax. Thereby, we can study how payment behavior changes if public goods are 􀀌na","cbCailGd0Aet5rgF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailGd0Aet5rgF","pdf",472802,38,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Research dimensions and contribution behavior\n## Institutional setting: the local church levy in Germany\n## Research design and treatment letters","[{\"question\":\"What is the main question of the paper?\",\"answer\":\"How imposing norms on contribution behavior—specifically communicating a levy as a tax—affects individuals’ intrinsic motivation.\"},{\"question\":\"Why is the German church levy used in the study?\",\"answer\":\"It is collected as a charitable donation but is legally a tax, allowing the experiment to test how different framings of the same payment obligation change behavior.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the study find about weak vs. strong intrinsic motivation?\",\"answer\":\"Weakly intrinsically motivated individuals show a significant crowd-out of intrinsic motivation when the levy is communicated as a legal norm, whereas strongly intrinsically motivated individuals show no treatment response.\"}]","Do Taxes Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation? - Field-Experimental Evidence from Germany | PDF",1789567149,13]