Monetary policy and households’ macroeconomic expectations

Last registered on September 20, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Monetary policy and households’ macroeconomic expectations
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012120
Initial registration date
September 15, 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
September 20, 2023, 10:37 AM EDT

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

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
ifo Institute

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
PI Affiliation
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-09-18
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
We run a survey among German households and examine whether explanation of monetary policy signals by economic experts shifts households’ inflation expectations.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gründler, Klaus et al. 2023. "Monetary policy and households’ macroeconomic expectations ." AEA RCT Registry. September 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12120-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We run a survey among German households and examine whether explanation of monetary policy signals by economic experts shifts households’ inflation expectations.
Intervention Start Date
2023-09-18
Intervention End Date
2023-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Expectation on inflation rates
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run a survey among German households and examine whether explanation of monetary policy signals by economic experts shifts households’ inflation expectations.

Our survey elicits prior expectations on the 2023 inflation rate and on the future kind of monetary policy employed the ECB.
For causal interpretation, we rely on three treatment arms that aim to exogenously shift households’ expectations about monetary policy. The first treatment informs participants that the ECB has raised the interest rate (without any information on the level of rate of increase). Participants in the second treatment arm receive the information that we ran a survey among economic experts, and that the interest rate increase by the ECB decreased the short-term inflation expectations of those experts by 1.2 percentage points. The participants in the third treatment arm receive the information that we ran a survey among economic experts and that those experts told us that an increase in the interest rate by the ECB decreases the inflation rate, because the demand for goods decreases. We employ an active control group design. Participants in the control group receive (irrelevant) information about the population development in Germany.
We then asked participants about their posterior expectations on the inflation rate and on the future kind of monetary policy employed the ECB.
Our main hypothesis is that the treatments decrease the expected inflation rate. We also examine whether the treatments changed the uncertainty underlying the participants’ answers. The second hypothesis is that the treatments in the second and third treatment arm give rise to higher treatment effects compared to the treatment in the first treatment arm.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individuals
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
3 treatment arms + 1 control group
Sample size: planned number of observations
1100
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
evenly split between 4 groups (3 treatment + control group)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number