Monetary policy and households’ spending

Last registered on October 08, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Monetary policy and households’ spending
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012121
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
October 04, 2023, 5:10 PM EDT

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

Last updated
October 08, 2024, 8:46 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
ifo Institute

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2023-09-18
End date
2024-10-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
We examine how households’ expectations on monetary policy influence their spending intentions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gründler, Klaus and Timo Wochner. 2024. "Monetary policy and households’ spending." AEA RCT Registry. October 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12121-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We run a survey among German households and examine whether changes in monetary policy expectations can shift households’ spending intentions.
Intervention Start Date
2023-09-18
Intervention End Date
2023-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Expectation on monetary policy expectations and spending intentions
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We examine as primary outcome the impact of expert assessments on households’ monetary policy expectations as a first stage. We then examine the causal effect on households’ spending intentions as a second stage.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run a survey among German households and examine whether changes in monetary policy expectations shift households’ spending intentions.
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 disjoint 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. We also asked participants question on spending intentions on durable and non-durable goods as well as whether now is a good timing of these purchases.
Our main hypothesis is that the treatments in a first stage impact participants’ expectation about future implementation of monetary policy. We believe that they will find it more likely that monetary policy will be restrictive. The second hypothesis is that the treatments in the second and third treatment arm give rise to higher treatment effects comparted to the treatment in the first treatment arm.
We then assess in 2SLS-design the causal effect of the change in monetary policy expectations on spending intentions. Our third hypothesis is that treated participants reduce their spending intentions.
Experimental Design Details
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 groups + 1 control group
Sample size: planned number of observations
1100
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
evenly split across 4 groups
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

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials