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Thus spoke the Bank of Italy’s Governors: an analysis of the language corpus of the Concluding Remarks, 1946-2018

Author

Listed:
  • Valerio Astuti

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Riccardo De Bonis

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Sergio Marroni

    (Tor Vergata Univerity of Rome)

  • Alessandro Vinci

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

This paper is the first to construct and analyse the language corpus of the Concluding Remarks (CF from now on), using the texts from 1946 to 2018. The first part of the paper summarizes the characteristics of the dataset, which contains around 850,000 words. The second part analyses the topics addressed by the Bank’s Governors over seventy years of Italian economic history. The third section provides a linguistic analysis of the CF, focusing in particular on the use of some types of subordinate clauses. The topics covered in the CF have been influenced by events, but also by each Governor’s personal point of view. The CF reached their maximum length in the 1970s and then became shorter. The length of the sentences increased in the 1950s and then declined, with the shortest sentences dating to the end of the 1990s. Our linguistic analysis shows that, up until the time of Baffi, the Governors concentrated on presenting economic trends. Over the last 25 years, however, the CF have focused on drawing up action programmes for Italy’s economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerio Astuti & Riccardo De Bonis & Sergio Marroni & Alessandro Vinci, 2020. "Thus spoke the Bank of Italy’s Governors: an analysis of the language corpus of the Concluding Remarks, 1946-2018," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 592, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_592_20
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    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2020-0592/QEF_592_20.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Gentzkow & Bryan Kelly & Matt Taddy, 2019. "Text as Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 535-574, September.
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    JEL classification:

    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods

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