Attention to Economic Narratives

Last registered on August 08, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Attention to Economic Narratives

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0016456

Initial registration date

August 06, 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

August 08, 2025, 7:21 AM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Philipp Heil

Affiliation

ifo Institute

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2025-08-06

End date

2027-12-31

Keywords

Behavior, Finance & Microfinance

Additional Keywords

Attention, Narratives, Inflation expectations, Expectation formation

JEL code(s)

E31, E71, D83, D84, D91

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Narratives about Inflation can influence inflation expectations of households. I examine how households allocate attention across competing narratives, and how this affects their expectation formation.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Heil, Philipp. 2025. "Attention to Economic Narratives." AEA RCT Registry. August 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16456-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

I field a survey among a representative sample of the US population in collaboration with the survey provider Bilendi.
Within this survey, I conduct an RCT where respondents are randomly exposed to different sets of inflation narratives by economic experts. A second treatment intervention is the provision of an expert forecast about import tariffs.

Intervention Start Date

2025-08-06

Intervention End Date

2025-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Attention allocation: Time spent on narratives; information acquisition of additional information about narratives between narratives;
quality of recall in open-ended questions (similarity of content with presented narratives, analyzed with LLM).
Inflation expectations: short-term calendar year inflation forecasts, Point forecasts for 12-month ahead expected inflation.
• Narrative updating: Change in participants’ stated drivers of inflation (Posterior vs. Prior). Open-Ended Narrative

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Quality of recall in open-ended questions: Similarity of content with presented narratives, analyzed with LLM

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Spending intentions, Long-term inflation expectations

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Survey including the RCT is sent out to participants via the survey provider Bilendi, to examine how individuals allocate attention to inflation narratives.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization done with built-in software in Qualtrics.

Randomization Unit

Randomization at the respondent level.

Was the treatment clustered?