How Do Expectations about the International Relations Affect Macroeconomic and Personal Expectations?

Last registered on August 18, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
How Do Expectations about the International Relations Affect Macroeconomic and Personal Expectations?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014164
Initial registration date
August 10, 2024

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
August 14, 2024, 2:41 PM EDT

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

Last updated
August 18, 2024, 3:41 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Lingbo Huang
Affiliation
Shandong University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Lu Dong
PI Affiliation
Southern University of Science and Technology
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-08-11
End date
2024-08-23
Keywords
Other
Additional Keywords
Macroeconomics, International Relations
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This research seeks to understand whether and how people's expectations about the international relations affect their expectations about the macroeconomy and personal behavior. The literature thus far has been exclusively focusing on how various domestic factors influence the expectations about the macroeconomy. To do so, we plan to conduct a survey experiment in which we provide different expert forecasts, regarding the probability of war between the U.S. and China over the next decade, to responders and assess whether the intervention changes their views on the U.S.-China relation and most importantly their expectations about the U.S. macroeconomy (including unemployment, inflation, stock performance, likelihood of recession, trade with China). We also ask about respondents' expectations about their own employment, saving, investing, and purchasing behavior.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dong, Lu and Lingbo Huang. 2024. "How Do Expectations about the International Relations Affect Macroeconomic and Personal Expectations?." AEA RCT Registry. August 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14164-2.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We provide different expert forecasts regarding the probability of war between the U.S. and China over the next decade. The forecasts are taken from a survey conducted by a U.S. university in 2022 to U.S. scholars who are working in the field of international relations. There are two treatment arms and one control arm. In the "low-forecast" treatment, the probability of war is estimated to be 3%, while in the "high-forecast" treatment, the number is 83%. In the control treatment, no information is provided.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-08-11
Intervention End Date
2024-08-23

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Key variables about the macroeconomy include unemployment, inflation, stock performance, likelihood of recession, trade with China. Key variables about the personal expectations and behavior include expectations about their own employment, saving, investing, and purchasing behavior.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Respondents' various views on the U.S.-China relation, which mostly serve as manipulation checks for the intervention.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We construct a survey experiment with five main blocks: 1) the first block collects respondents' demographic information; 2) the second block measures the benchmark probability of war between the U.S. and China; 3) the third block is the intervention in which one of the three arms is randomly distributed to respondents; 4) the fourth block is about international relations between the U.S. and China, which mostly serves as manipulation checks for the intervention; and 5) the fifth block is about expectations regarding the macroeconomy and personal expectations and behavior.

There will be three waves of data collection.

Wave 1: We run the survey experiment as described above.

Wave 2: We rerun the survey experiment, focusing only on the two treatment arms with different forecasts. This wave will also include an additional set of qualitative questions. The purpose of Wave 2 is twofold: to gather more data and to test for any number anchoring effects on the main quantitative questions.

Wave 3: We conduct a placebo experiment where the survey items remain the same as in Wave 2, but the treatments with forecasts of the probability of war are replaced by treatments with the same numbers used in the previous waves but in irrelevant contexts. Specifically, in one treatment, we tell respondents that "3% of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants." In the other treatment, we tell respondents that "83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas." These numbers are identical to those used in the earlier waves, but they are unrelated to international relations and macroeconomy.

The purpose of Wave 3 is to determine whether the specific numbers used in the forecasts in the previous waves might have influenced respondents' answers due to anchoring effects, even when the numbers are irrelevant to the context of the survey.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization is acheived by the built-in feature of Qualtrics.
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Wave 1: 1002 individuals
Wave 2: 1000 individuals
Wave 3: 1000 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
Wave 1: 1002 individuals Wave 2: 1000 individuals Wave 3: 1000 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
334 individuals in the control arm; 834 in each treatment arm; 500 in each placebo treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Committee on Human Research Protection of SDU-CER-LAB
IRB Approval Date
2024-08-01
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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