Does the Messenger of Central Bank Communication Matter? Effects on Belief Updating.

Last registered on October 31, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Does the Messenger of Central Bank Communication Matter? Effects on Belief Updating.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010727
Initial registration date
January 09, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 09, 2023, 5:33 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
October 31, 2023, 11:33 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Alena Wabitsch
Affiliation
University of Oxford
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-01-09
End date
2024-09-30
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance, Governance
Additional Keywords
Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy Communication, Inflation Expectations.
JEL code(s)
E31, E58
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Central bank communication has been used as a monetary policy tool to - amongst others - influence inflation expectations. This paper studies whether the source (i.e. the messenger) of central bank communication matters for communication to be effective. Further, this trial looks into the existence of potential "ingroup" effects, where the effectiveness of communication is altered because of shared attributes of the receiver and messenger of the communication.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Wabitsch, Alena. 2023. "Does the Messenger of Central Bank Communication Matter? Effects on Belief Updating.." AEA RCT Registry. October 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10727-2.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2023-02-01
Intervention End Date
2024-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Signal uptake;
Similarly: Extent of Bayesian Updating
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Signal uptake: measured as the extent to which the signal is used participants' inflation forecast revisions (i.e. in their posteriors, after treatment);
Extent of Bayesian Updating: i.e., how rational/close to the rational posterior the updated inflation forecasts are

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1) Attention to provided analyses (i.e. central bank communication) of the messengers.
2) Exposure and trust of institutions and (examples of) policymakers that are similar to the generic treatments in the trial.
3) Other differences: across nationalities, levels of monetary policy expertise
4) Effects on uncertainty
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
1)+2) To better understand potential mechanisms to heterogeneous belief updating, participants' attention to information, as well as trust and exposure to similar policymakers are being elicited. Here, exposure is how well institutions and policymakers are known, and how regularly news about them are followed.
3) Sample splits by participant nationality (requires final sample to be large enough to ensure enough power), and level of self-reported extent of following key monetary policy announcements (to compare across financial expertise levels, and compare to some observational results)
4) Both, within-subject change in forecast uncertainty before and after information provision, and between-subject "disagreement" before and after information provision.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
An RCT run via Prolific to test how individuals update inflation expectations, given information by different messengers.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomisation done by the computer (via a randomisation algorithm)
Randomization Unit
Individual: Subjects participated individually. We deployed our experiment online via Prolific.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
n/a (4 nationalities)
Sample size: planned number of observations
at least 100 participants per nationality (400 in total), ideally at least 200 per nationality given extra funding availability (800 in total)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
at least 400 participants per (nationality-pooled) treatments (within-subject design);
splitting by nationality (participant or outgroup nationality) this will fall accordingly
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Department of Economics Departmental Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2021-11-05
IRB Approval Number
ECONCIA21-22-24
Analysis Plan