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on Nudge and Boosting |
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Issue of 2026–05–25
two papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Assenza, Tiziana; Huber, Stefanie J.; Mogilevskaja, Anna; Schmidt, Tobias |
| Abstract: | We use a randomized experiment in the Bundesbank Online Panel-Households (n ≈ 3, 900) to show that the estimated link between inflation expectations and household consumption flips sign depending on survey wording. This finding reconciles prior contradictory results and has direct implications for central bank survey design. Our experiment systematically varies elicitation framing of consumption question along three dimensions: the reference unit (individual vs. household), the time horizon (past one, 3, or 12 months), and the question type (attitudinal, planned, qualitative and quantitative recall-based). We find that the time horizon and question type significantly influence the estimated relationship between inflation expectations and durable consumption. While the average effect is weak, its sign and magnitude vary strongly with question design. Planned spending and attitudinal questions, such as whether it is a good time to buy, produce very similar negative associations, suggesting that respondents interpret the former as a proxy for future intentions. In contrast, quantitative recall-based questions on past spending yield a modestly positive link, especially for shorter horizons. These results highlight the critical role of survey design in shaping behavioral measurements, offering a novel explanation for mixed findings in the literature and guidance for both research and policy. |
| Keywords: | expectations, inflation, consumption, household decision making, survey methodology, framing effects, measurement |
| JEL: | C83 D12 D84 E31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdps:341099 |
| By: | Zarema Khon (Nazarbayev University, Graduate School of Business); Haiming Hang (University of Bath); Samuel G. B. Johnson (University of Waterloo) |
| Abstract: | People encounter persuasion on a daily basis, but often resist persuasion attempts that clash with their moral intuitions. How do people make these moral judgments of persuasion? Four studies (N = 1, 103) show that these judgments depend on metacognitive beliefs about how the persuasion is processed. If people think persuasion aims at their emotions and intuition - bypassing deliberative reasoning - they evaluate it as more immoral and manipulative than persuasion believed to be processed deliberately. This is because people find System 1 processing (fast and effortless, such as encountering an emotional appeal ad) more autonomy-threatening than System 2 processing (slow and effortful, such as reading about a product's features). Since System 2 (vs. System 1) persuasion is considered less immoral, it yields more positive attitude change than that of System 1 (no matter if the latter is positively valenced, such as humor, or negatively valenced, such as appeal to pity). These findings contribute to research on moral judgment, lay theories of cognitive processing, psychology of autonomy, and resistance to persuasion. |
| Keywords: | persuasion, morality, perceived autonomy, reactance, dual-process theory, lay theories, metacognition |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asx:nugsbw:2026-09 |