IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation

Author Info

  • Ales Bulir
  • David-Jan Jansen
  • Martin Cihak

Abstract

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010. Overall, we find no strong indications that central banks were less clear in explaining their policies when faced with higher uncertainty or a less favorable inflation outlook. The global financial crisis, however, did have a negative impact on clarity of central bank communication.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=25607
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 12/9.

as
in new window

Length: 24
Date of creation: 01 Jan 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:12/9
Contact details of provider: Postal:
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA

Phone: (202) 623-7000
Fax: (202) 623-4661
Web page: http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Keywords: Central banks; Inflation; Monetary policy; Public information notices; Transparency; communication; clarity; central bank; inflation target;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
  • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Born, Benjamin & Ehrmann, Michael & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2011. "Central bank communication on financial stability," Working Paper Series 1332, European Central Bank.
  2. Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Geraats, Petra M., 2006. "How transparent are central banks?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, March.
  3. Malcolm D. Knight & Chair, 2005. "General discussion : central bank communication and policy effectiveness," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 495-505.
  4. Petra Gerlach-Kristen, 2004. "Is the MPC's Voting Record Informative about Future UK Monetary Policy?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(2), pages 299-313, 06.
  5. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," DNB Working Papers 170, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  6. Sònia Muñoz & Samir Jahjah & Martin Cihak & Sharika Teh Sharifuddin & Kalin I Tintchev, 2012. "Financial Stability Reports; What Are they Good for?," IMF Working Papers 12/1, International Monetary Fund.
  7. Alan Blinder, 2009. "Talking about monetary policy: the virtues (and vice?) of central bank communication," BIS Working Papers 274, Bank for International Settlements.
  8. Michael Woodford, 2005. "Central Bank Communication and Policy Effectiveness," NBER Working Papers 11898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Jansen, David-Jan, 2011. "Mumbling with great incoherence: Was it really so difficult to understand Alan Greenspan?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 70-72, October.
  10. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
  11. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
  12. Ales Bulir & David-Jan Jansen & Martin Cihak, 2012. "Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation," IMF Working Papers 12/9, International Monetary Fund.
  13. Martin Cihak & Katerina Smídková & Ales Bulir, 2008. "Writing Clearly; ECB’s Monetary Policy Communication," IMF Working Papers 08/252, International Monetary Fund.
  14. Tiff Macklem, 2005. "Commentary : central bank communication and policy effectiveness," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 475-494.
  15. Katerina Smídková & Viktor Kotlán & David Navrátil & Ales Bulir, 2008. "Inflation Targeting and Communication; It Pays Off to Read Inflation Reports," IMF Working Papers 08/234, International Monetary Fund.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 1038, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
  2. Ales Bulír & Martin Cihák & David-Jan Jansen, 2011. "Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation," DNB Working Papers 333, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:12/9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jim Beardow)

or (Hassan Zaidi)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.