Effective Policy Communication: Target vs. Instrument

Last registered on October 15, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Effective Policy Communication: Target vs. Instrument
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006597
Initial registration date
October 15, 2020

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 15, 2020, 12:30 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Boston College

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Chicago

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2020-06-01
End date
2021-01-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Communication targeting households and firms has become a stand-alone policy tool of many central banks. But which forms of communication, if any, can reach ordinary people and manage their economic expectations effectively? In this large-scale randomized control trial, we provide randomly three groups of a representative population of men in Finland with different forms of communication about the same policies that the European Central Bank (ECB) has implemented in April 2020 to reduce the negative shocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The communication about the same policies comes from the same source and medium (the twitter account of the Governor of the Bank of Finland, Dr. Olli Rehn), but one group faces a form of target communication, which only discusses the final objective of the policy without discussing the legal instruments the ECB will use to reach such objective, and another group faces a form of instrument communication, which discusses the technical instruments the ECB uses and which form the policy. A control group of subjects faces a tweet discussing a period of economic crisis in Finnish history without any specific connection to the COVID-19 policies implemented by the ECB. Our trial aims to study the effects of different forms of policy communication on the average consumer as well as the heterogeneity of these effects across dimensions we observe in the data---cognitive abilities as a proxy for sophistication and prior income-change beliefs.


External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
D'Acunto, Francesco and Michael Weber. 2020. "Effective Policy Communication: Target vs. Instrument." AEA RCT Registry. October 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6597-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We propose a within-subject experimental design with three experimental arms: a control group, in which subjects read a tweet by Dr. Rehn referring to the economic crisis of Finland after the First World War and unrelated to current events and policies; a target-communication group, in which subjects read a tweet that discusses the objectives of the ECB's policies implemented in April 2020 to overcome the negative economic shock due to the COVID-19 crisis; an instrument-communication group, in which subjects read a tweet that discusses the legal instrument and the size of the PEPP program the ECB implemented in April 2020. We elicit subjects' beliefs about their households' income both before and after the experimental treatments are administered. To reduce the concern of demand effects, we elicit point estimates in the first instance and full probability distributions ("Manski question") after the treatment.
Intervention Start Date
2020-07-10
Intervention End Date
2020-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Change in numerical household income expectations
2. Change in trust towards the central bank and its policies
3. Change in qualitative household income expectations
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
NA
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The design is a within-subject experimental design with 3 experimental arms: a control group, a treatment-communication group, and an instrument-communication group. We do not randomize or stratify any other dimensions.

The manipulation consists of showing subjects a tweet from Dr. Olli Rehn's twitter account that discusses a situation of economic crisis in the history of Finland (control group), the objectives of the ECB policies implemented to overcome the COVID-19-induced economic crisis, and the instruments (PEPP) implemented by the ECB to overcome the COVID-19-induced economic crisis. All tweets are true tweets from the official account of Dr. Rehn.
Experimental Design Details
The design is a within-subject experimental design with 3 experimental arms: a control group, a treatment-communication group, and an instrument-communication group. We do not randomize or stratify any other dimensions.

The manipulation consists of showing subjects a tweet from Dr. Olli Rehn's twitter account that discusses a situation of economic crisis in the history of Finland (control group), the objectives of the ECB policies implemented to overcome the COVID-19-induced economic crisis, and the instruments (PEPP) implemented by the ECB to overcome the COVID-19-induced economic crisis. All tweets are true tweets from the official account of Dr. Rehn.
Randomization Method
Randomization is performed by a computer at Statistics Finland after subjects are recruited for a survey experiment.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
5100
Sample size: planned number of observations
5100
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1700 in the control group, 1700 in the target-communication group, and 1700 in the target-communication group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Boston College IRB
IRB Approval Date
2020-05-15
IRB Approval Number
N/A

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