In today’s world, central bank communication matters more than the policy actions of central banks themselves (Bernanke 2015). Monetary policy messages need to be received and understood by everybody. Central banks rely on communication to shape inflation expectations in financial markets, and clear and transparent communication also enhances the public’s trust in the central bank. (Aikman et al. 2025). But central banks face challenges in reaching wider audiences (Granziera et al. 2025).
We still know little about how citizens’ inflation expectations are formed and updated (Malmendier et al., 2022). Yet such knowledge is of policy relevance, since citizens’ decisions and behaviours strongly influence the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy.
It has been argued that communication strategies can help anchor public inflation expectations if they break the “cycle of selective inattention”, whereby citizens tend to ignore inflation news when inflation is near the target but pay attention when it overshoots it (Coibion and Gorodnichenko 2025). ECB press conferences deliver effective communication by clarifying policy intentions and reducing market uncertainty (Blinder et al. 2008). However, beyond the realm of experts such as ECB watchers, public awareness of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy and its primary objective of price stability has remained low. Yet, this knowledge is critical for understanding key monetary policy messages and forming inflation expectations (van der Cruijsen et al. 2015).
Studying the impact of direct communication on inflation expectations in real-world settings is challenging, as direct contact between the public and central banks is relatively rare. However, several studies have examined the response to information treatments in randomised survey experiments, by making use of household surveys. These studies suggest that consumers may respond positively to central bank communication. For example, providing information about the inflation target can reduce the dispersion of inflation expectations around the target (e.g. Cobion et al. 2022, Ehrmann et al. 2025). But such survey experiments may fail to accurately capture real-world behaviours, as responses to online surveys may be biased towards the researchers’ hypotheses. A field experiment is therefore a useful complement to the online survey-based research. It provides detailed insights into the behavioural changes of households and shows how central bank communication can actually improve monetary literacy and influence the beliefs of non-experts.
The experiment
The ECB offers on-site lectures in Frankfurt for which groups and individuals can register. While participants are non-experts, they usually have some interest and background in economics. The lectures are interactive and start with a one-hour presentation by an ECB staff expert, followed by questions and answers.
For our experiment, we conducted 117 sessions between December 2022 and May 2025, with a total of 5,000 participants (Jung and Mongelli 2025). Study participants – primarily younger, financially educated individuals, but also older adults – were separated into three groups (see Figure 1). The ‘treated’ group was given presentations from ECB experts on the bank’s monetary policy framework and decision-making process; the ‘placebo’ group received no such information; and a ‘control’ group was taught about other ECB tasks unrelated to monetary policy by experts. Participants were asked to fill out a survey afterwards.
How did we then ascertain the effects of direct communication about monetary policy? Comparing outcomes between the treated and control groups, as well as between the placebo and control groups, allows us to estimate the average treatment effect. We examined whether directly communicating information on the ECB’s monetary policy affects participants’ knowledge and expectations. We also checked for treatment heterogeneity based on demographics or language spoken.
Figure 1 The field experiment: An overview
Note: The figure schematically illustrates the sampling process and the different treatment ECB visitor groups received during the experiment. Average treatment effects were computed for three outcome variables – monetary literacy, inflation expectations and growth expectations – by comparing the outcomes for participants receiving treatment with those for participants receiving no treatment.
How can direct communication influence expectations?
We find that treated individuals improved their monetary policy knowledge robustly and developed a better understanding of the ECB’s inflation target. However, the treatment effects varied across demographics, notably gender, age, and education. Females, older participants (above 30 years’ old), and those without a university degree benefitted the most from the expert presentations. This suggests that direct communication with non-experts can noticeably improve individual monetary policy knowledge, especially for those who are less knowledgeable. It also addresses broader societal concerns about inequality in monetary literacy among those groups. This is particularly important considering existing imbalances for gender, age, and education categories (Lusardi and Mitchell 2023, Ehrmann et al. 2025).
Improved knowledge (i.e. a higher monetary literacy score) was a key factor explaining why a significant share of treated non-experts better aligned their medium-term inflation expectations with the inflation target (see Figure 2). While a large share of participants with no knowledge (42%) revised their medium-term inflation expectations towards the ECB’s inflation target, the effects for participants with full knowledge were not significant. On average, 15% of the participants exposed to the communication treatment showed a better anchoring of their inflation expectations. This finding highlights the key role that monetary literacy plays in enabling the public to engage meaningfully with central bank communication. However, this improved understanding of monetary policy did not lead to systematic revisions of their economic growth expectations, suggesting that participants perceived growth forecasts as more uncertain or less directly influenced by monetary policy.
Figure 2 Monetary policy knowledge and impact of treatment on inflation expectations
Notes: The y-axis is in percentages. The breakdown of average treatment effects (ATE) are shown for the total population and sub-groups with different levels of prior knowledge of the ECB’s monetary policy, notably the treatment group relative to the control group. ATE estimates, with regression adjustment, include controls for individual demographics such as age, gender, origin and education, for individual inflation and economic growth perceptions, and for prior knowledge.
The ECB explained that the adoption of a simple 2% inflation target in 2021 is also meant to improve communication with the public (Lane 2021). Central bank communication about the price stability target helps anchor consumer expectations more closely to the target (d’Acunto et al., 2024). Aligning with these priors, our field experiment shows that learning about the ECB’s policy objectives and the precise inflation target led a substantial share of non-experts to revise their medium-term inflation expectations towards the ECB’s target (see the blue bars in Figure 3). This was established by categorising participants into three sub-groups, based on their prior knowledge of the ECB’s inflation target: participants not familiar with either the ECB’s mandate or the inflation target (sub-group 1); participants aware of the ECB’s mandate but not the precise inflation target (sub-group 2); and participants with an understanding of both the ECB’s mandate and its specific inflation target (sub-group 3).
Figure 3 Impact of treatment on inflation expectations depending on prior knowledge of the inflation target
Notes: The y-axis is in percentages. Average treatment effects (ATE) are shown for the total population (blue bars) and the German population (yellow bars), notably the treatment group relative to the control group by knowledge about the ECB’s inflation target. ATE estimates, with regression adjustment, include controls for individual demographics such as age, gender, origin and education, and for individual perceptions of inflation and economic growth.
We also find that the anchoring of participants’ inflation expectations improved even more when participants were addressed in their native language (yellow bars in Figure 3). It is plausible to explain this as a trust-based effect of communication that goes beyond participants learning about monetary policy. Individuals addressed in their native language may feel more confident in their ability to comprehend central bank messages and also may be more likely to trust the speaker.
The way forward
The findings from the field experiment answer the broader question posed by Blinder et al. (2024) of whether central bank communication with the public is a promising avenue or provides false hope. We show that direct communication with non-experts is promising because it can bring their medium-term inflation expectations substantially closer to the inflation target. The effectiveness of communication can be enhanced by tailoring messages to diverse audiences, as the literature has shown, and by making efforts to improve public knowledge of monetary policy, as this experiment demonstrates. For example, increased investment in targeted educational programmes at schools and universities can, over time, enhance young citizens’ trust and understanding of monetary policy, thereby reducing the broad variation in their inflation expectations. Furthermore, complementary use of indirect channels – such as social media, traditional media, and accessible resources such as the ECB website and visitor centre – should also ensure messages reach broader audiences. Finally, trust-building efforts and multilingual communication in the context of the ECB are essential to fostering engagement and ensuring it effectiveness.
Authors’ note: The views expressed in this column and all errors and omissions should be regarded as those of the authors and not necessarily those of the ECB.
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