Experts as Intermediaries

Households often struggle to interpret policy interventions, limiting its effectiveness. The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar shows that professional economists can serve as interpretive intermediaries, translating policy signals into actionable guidance. Using large-scale cross-national expert surveys and representative household experiments in Germany during the 2022–23 inflation surge, the authors show that (i) experts actively update and interpret monetary policy signals, (ii) their policy interpretations shape household expectations and spending decisions, and (iii) households prefer expert interpretations over direct communication from policymakers. These results reveal a previously overlooked channel of policy transmission, highlighting how expert intermediation can strengthen the effectiveness of macroeconomic policy communication.