Consumption, savings and interest rates - experimental evidence

Last registered on July 28, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Consumption, savings and interest rates - experimental evidence
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009994
Initial registration date
July 27, 2023

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
July 28, 2023, 2:08 PM 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
Tanja Linta
Affiliation
Toulouse School of Economics
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Alena Wabitsch
PI Affiliation
University of Oxford
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PI Name
Manuel Mosquera Tarrio
PI Affiliation
University of Manchester
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-09-28
End date
2025-03-31
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The study investigates how people incorporate interest-rate information in their lifetime consumption and savings decisions, and how their choices depend on their income. In an experimental environment, we expose subjects to different levels of income and different amounts of information about the interest rate state governing the returns on their savings. Additionally, we elicit their willingness to pay for interest-rate information to assess its perceived relevance in their behaviour, conditional on income.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Linta, Tanja, Manuel Mosquera Tarrio and Alena Wabitsch. 2023. "Consumption, savings and interest rates - experimental evidence ." AEA RCT Registry. July 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9994-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2023-09-01
Intervention End Date
2025-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Consumption, savings in a risky asset and payoffs.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experimental design is based on a permanent income model where agents choose to allocate their income to either consumption or savings in a risky asset, in a dynamic setting over a number of periods. In the experiment, we implement income and information treatments to understand whether and how the decisions are different for different levels of available income and different amounts of information about the per-period returns on savings. Furthermore, we elicit willingness to pay for information that reduces the uncertainty of the returns on savings.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization is done on an individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
There are no clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
At most 200 participants will be making choices over 3 sequences of 20 periods, making it a total of 12,000 observations per outcome variable.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
There are four main treatment groups: the pool of at most 200 participants is first split into two income groups (high and low), and then each of them is further split into two more with different information treatments about the return process on the risky asset. This makes in total four groups with at most 50 participants.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Manchester
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-17
IRB Approval Number
2023-17482-30379
Analysis Plan