The Price of a Price: On the Crowding out of Social Norms

Maarten C.W. Janssen () and Ewa Mendys ()
Additional contact information
Maarten C.W. Janssen: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Ewa Mendys: Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 01-065/1, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: There is increasing empirical and experimental evidence thatproviding financial incentives to agents to performcertain socially desirable actions may permanently reduce other typesof motivations to undertake these actions.We study the impact of financial incentives on the desire for socialapproval, using the example of blood donation.We show that in a society with altruists and egoists, who all careabout social approval, introducing a payment intoa voluntary system may actually decrease the amount of blood donated.Withdrawing the financial incentive doesnot restore the norm to donate and may reduce the supply of bloodeven further.

Keywords: social norms; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; network effects; health policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I18 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-07-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/01065.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20010065

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().