Income Outlooks and Decision-Making: Insights from a personalized survey experiment

Last registered on February 10, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Income Outlooks and Decision-Making: Insights from a personalized survey experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017772
Initial registration date
February 02, 2026

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 10, 2026, 5:47 AM EST

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
Salle Isabelle
Affiliation
University of Ottawa and University of Amsterdam
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Yuriy Goronidchenko
PI Affiliation
University of California Berkeley
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PI Name
Olivier Coibion
PI Affiliation
University of Texas at Austin
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PI Name
Cars Hommes
PI Affiliation
University of Amsterdam
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2026-01-05
End date
2028-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
income, consumption, investment
JEL code(s)
E70; D15; D84
Secondary IDs
D14; D83
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project examines how individuals form and revise expectations about future economic conditions and how these expectations relate to economic decision-making. Drawing on repeated observations over time and incorporating external sources of information, we study belief updating and its implications for stated economic plans and subsequent outcomes. The analysis highlights systematic patterns in expectation formation and adjustment, and provides new evidence on the link between beliefs, plans, and realized behaviors.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Coibion, Olivier et al. 2026. "Income Outlooks and Decision-Making: Insights from a personalized survey experiment." AEA RCT Registry. February 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17772-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2026-01-05
Intervention End Date
2027-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Economic and financial expectations and decisions
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Data are Huber-weighted to account for outliers. Speedsters (i.e. typically who spent less than 5 minutes on our main survey) are removed by the survey platform (the LISS panel) but are not expected since the data are promoted as being of high quality (recurring panel members, recruiting efforts, compensation, etc. all dealt with by the LISS panel, since 2007).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Each respondent is assigned to one treatment with probability 1/4.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
done by the computer on the LISS panel server
Randomization Unit
at the respondent level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1
Sample size: planned number of observations
1600 to 2000 employees (depend on the response rate)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1600/4 = 400 per treatment minimum.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Assuming alpha= 10% (significance level, given our sample size), with a power set to 80%, on a binary outcome (e.g., has increased or not consumption), 12 p.p. difference is the minimum detectable effect (MDE). With continuous outcomes (e.g. mean income growth expectations), and a standard deviation of outcomes of 1, the MDE amounts to 0.25.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Economics and Business Ethics Committee (EBEC)
IRB Approval Date
2025-08-15
IRB Approval Number
EB-18457
Analysis Plan