欧洲央行-央行与非专家的沟通：来自大规模实地实验的见解（英）

Working Paper Series Central bank communication with non-experts: insights from a randomized field experiment Alexander Jung, Francesco Paolo Mongelli Disclaimer: This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB. No 3103 Abstract We conducted a randomized field experiment to investigate the impact of direct central bank communication on the monetary policy knowledge and expectations of non-experts. Between 2022 and 2025, at the ECB Visitor Centre, we exposed nearly 5,000 participants from diverse visitor groups to policy briefings, similar to the communication at ECB press conferences. The random assignment of participants to treatment, placebo, or control groups created exogenous variation in the information they received. We implemented a new survey to gain insights into participants’ monetary policy knowledge, as well as their inflation and growth expectations, both before and after the information treatment. This approach enabled us to explore how knowledge and trust influence the economic expectations of non-experts. Our findings indicate that treated individuals improved their monetary policy knowledge and developed a better understanding of the ECB’s inflation target, which proved to be a key factor in explaining why a substantial share of treated non-experts revised their medium-term inflation expectations, aligning them with the inflation target. However, the improved understanding of monetary policy did not lead to systematic revisions in their economic growth expectations. Removing potential language barriers amplified the effects of direct communication on monetary policy knowledge and individual inflation expectations, confirming the importance of addressing citizens in their native language. JEL Codes: C83, C93, D83, D84, E31, E58. Keywords: Central bank communication, Behavioral economics, Randomized controlled trial, Monetary policy knowledge, Inflation expectations. ECB Working Paper Series No 31031Non-technical summary Effective communication strategies with diverse stakeholders are essential for central banks to maintain price stability and ensure the smooth transmission of monetary policy measures. This research examines the impact of direct central bank communication with non-experts on their understanding of monetary policy and macroeconomic expectations. Our study is motivated by the need to understand better how effectively such communication conveys information to the public, enabling them to form well-informed economic expectations. A key challenge stems from the often found dominance of the media as the primary information source for non-experts, whose inflation expectations show significant dispersion compared to the well-anchored expectations of professionals. Recent episodes influenced by supply shocks have further emphasized this disparity. While communications at ECB press c