Causal effects of interest rate expectations on firm decisions

Last registered on February 06, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Causal effects of interest rate expectations on firm decisions
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015310
Initial registration date
January 31, 2025

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
February 06, 2025, 7:54 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
Germany
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Nils Wehrhöfer
Affiliation
Deutsche Bundesbank
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Alina Kristin Bartscher
PI Affiliation
Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
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PI Name
Johannes Goensch
PI Affiliation
Goethe University Frankfurt
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PI Name
Georg Duernecker
PI Affiliation
Goethe University Frankfurt
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Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-05-01
End date
2022-12-31
Keywords
Firms & Productivity
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study firms' expectations and choices in response to an information provision experiment conducted in the Bundesbank Online Panel – Firms (BOP-F). The information provided contains the actual policy rate of the European Central Bank (ECB) as well as financial market expectations of the policy rate in one year. We plan to study both firm expectations as well as firm choices in other data sets that can be linked to the BOP-F.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bartscher, Alina Kristin et al. 2025. "Causal effects of interest rate expectations on firm decisions." AEA RCT Registry. February 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15310-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention is a randomized control trial (RCT) which was implemented by the BOP-F survey team in 2021 and 2022. We were not involved in the design or implementation of the RCT.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2021-05-01
Intervention End Date
2022-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We plan to study firm expectations in the BOP-F data as well as financial and real decisions of the firms after treatment in the linked datasets.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Firms were randomly allocated to three treatment arms. Firms in the first treatment arm did not receive any information and constitute the control group. The second treatment arm provides firms with the current policy rate of the ECB. The third treatment arm provides firms with both the current policy rate of the ECB and financial market expectations for the ECB’s policy rate in one year calculated on the basis of the one-year-ahead €STR.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The treatment status was randomized by the survey firm running the BOP-F.
Randomization Unit
The treatment status was randomized once at the firm level when a firm enters the BOP-F and treatment status is constant afterward.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We plan to cluster our standard errors at the firm level (see below for number of firms).
Sample size: planned number of observations
We plan to evaluate the RCT on the sample of all non-financial firms that were subject to the RCTs and consented to linkage with other data sets. Since some firms were treated more than once with the same information, we plan to evaluate the first treatment for each firm. This yields about 10000 firms in the baseline sample. All analyses which require linkage to other data sets will have a lower number of observations due to non-matches.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
All three treatment groups are equally-sized at 1/3 of the overall sample.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
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