IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/12-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ales Bulir & David-Jan Jansen & Martin Cihak, 2012. "Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation," IMF Working Papers 12/9, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:12/9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ales Bulír & Martin Cihák & David-Jan Jansen, 2011. "Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation," DNB Working Papers 333, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    2. 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.
    3. Alan S. Blinder, 2008. "Talking about Monetary Policy: The Virtues (and Vices?) of Central Bank Communication," Working Papers 1048, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    4. 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," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Michael Woodford, 2005. "Central bank communication and policy effectiveness," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 399-474.
    8. Martin Cihak & Katerina Smídková & Ales Bulir, 2008. "Writing Clearly; ECB’s Monetary Policy Communication," IMF Working Papers 08/252, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Benjamin Born & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher, 2014. "Central Bank Communication on Financial Stability," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(577), pages 701-734, June.
    10. 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.
    11. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ales Bulír & Martin Cihák & David-Jan Jansen, 2011. "Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation," DNB Working Papers 333, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    2. Aleš Bulíř & Martin Čihák & David-Jan Jansen, 2013. "What Drives Clarity of Central Bank Communication About Inflation?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 125-145, February.
    3. 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," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    4. Pierre L. Siklos, 2013. "The Global Financial Crisis and the Language of Central Banking: Central Bank Guidance in Good Times and in Bad," CAMA Working Papers 2013-58, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    5. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli, 2016. "From Silence to Voice: Monetary Policy, Central Bank Governance and Communication," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1627, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    6. Ludovic Desmedt & Matthieu Llorca, 2016. "L’euro, le bourdon et le banquier central," Post-Print hal-01430375, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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

    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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. 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). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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 CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service 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.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.