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Central bank communication on social media: What, to whom, and how?

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  • Gorodnichenko, Yuriy
  • Pham, Tho
  • Talavera, Oleksandr

Abstract

: what was communicated, who were listeners, and how they reacted. Using various natural language processing techniques, we identify the main topics discussed by the Fed and major audiences. While the Fed tweets talking about central banking topics attract greater attention from Twitter users, only the extensive margin is economically meaningful. Among all groups of users, the media accounts and economists are most active in engaging with the Fed, especially when discussing central banking-related issues. We also show that information extracted from the tweets can provide a real-time, qualitative diagnostic for inflation expectations and some reaction of these Twitter-based inflation expectations to policy action and communication.

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  • Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2025. "Central bank communication on social media: What, to whom, and how?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 249(PC).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:249:y:2025:i:pc:s0304407624002148
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconom.2024.105869
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    2. Michael Ehrmann & Paul Hubert, 2022. "Information Acquisition ahead of Monetary Policy Announcements," Working papers 897, Banque de France.
    3. Mary C. Daly, 2025. "Dynamic Central Bank Communication," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2025(15), pages 1-6, June.
    4. Qiang Chen & Tianyang Han & Jin Li & Ye Luo & Yuxiao Wu & Xiaowei Zhang & Tuo Zhou, 2025. "Can AI Master Econometrics? Evidence from Econometrics AI Agent on Expert-Level Tasks," Papers 2506.00856, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2025.
    5. Michael J. Lamla & Dmitri V. Vinogradov, 2021. "Is the Word of a Gentleman as Good as His Tweet? Policy communications of the Bank of England," Working Paper Series in Economics 403, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.

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    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General

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