IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/123267.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Communicational bias in monetary policy: can words forecast deeds?

Author

Listed:
  • Pincheira, Pablo
  • Calani, Mauricio

Abstract

Communication with the public is an ever-growing practice among central banks and complements their decisions of interest rate setting. In this paper we examine one feature of the communicational practice of the Central Bank of Chile which summarizes the assessment of the Board about the most likely future of monetary policy. We show that this assessment, which is called communicational bias or simply c-bias, contains valuable information regarding the future stance of monetary policy. We do this by comparing, against several benchmarks, the c-bias ability to correctly forecast the direction of monetary policy rates. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the Central Bank of Chile has (in our sample period) matched words and deeds. In fact, the c-bias is a more accurate predictor than two versions of random walks and than a uniformly-distributed random variable. It also outperforms, at some horizons, the predictive ability of a discrete Taylor-rule-type model that uses persistence, output gap and inflation-deviation-from-target as arguments. Furthermore, the c-bias is more accurate than survey-based forecasts at several forecasting horizons. We also show that the c-bias can provide information to improve monetary policy rate forecasts based on the forward rate curve.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Pincheira, Pablo & Calani, Mauricio, 2010. "Communicational bias in monetary policy: can words forecast deeds?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123267, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123267
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/123267/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    2. Frederic S. Miskin & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, 2007. "Does Inflation Targeting Make a Difference?," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Frederic S. Miskin & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Monetary Policy under Inflation Targeting, edition 1, volume 11, chapter 9, pages 291-372, Central Bank of Chile.
    3. Anatoliy Belaygorod & Michael J. Dueker, 2005. "Discrete monetary policy changes and changing inflation targets in estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 87(Nov), pages 719-734.
    4. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    5. John P. Judd & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1998. "Taylor's rule and the Fed, 1970-1997," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-16.
    6. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    7. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    8. Nicoletta Batini & Douglas Laxton, 2007. "Under What Conditions Can Inflation Targeting Be Adopted? The Experience of Emerging Markets," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Frederic S. Miskin & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Monetary Policy under Inflation Targeting, edition 1, volume 11, chapter 12, pages 467-506, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Athanasios Orphanides & John Williams, 2004. "Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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.
    11. Refet S Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? The Response of Asset Prices to Monetary Policy Actions and Statements," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    12. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Stefan Krause, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy become more Efficient? a Cross-Country Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 408-433, April.
    13. Andersson, Malin & Dillen, Hans & Sellin, Peter, 2006. "Monetary policy signaling and movements in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1815-1855, November.
    14. Rosa, Carlo & Verga, Giovanni, 2007. "On the consistency and effectiveness of central bank communication: Evidence from the ECB," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 146-175, March.
    15. R. Fuentes S. & A. Jara R. & K. Schmidt-Hebbel D. & M. Tapia G., 2003. "Monetary Policy Nominalization in Chile: an Evaluation," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 6(2), pages 5-35, August.
    16. David-Jan Jansen & Jakob de Haan & Jakob de Haan, 2006. "Does ECB Communication Help in Predicting its Interest Rate Decisions?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1804, CESifo.
    17. Siklos, Pierre L. & Bohl, Martin T., 2007. "Do actions speak louder than words? Evaluating monetary policy at the Bundesbank," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 368-386, June.
    18. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    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. González, Mario & Tadle, Raul Cruz, 2020. "Signaling and financial market impact of chile’s central bank communication: a content analysis approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123054, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Lin, Jianhao & Mei, Ziwei & Chen, Liangyuan & Zhu, Chuanqi, 2023. "Is the People's Bank of China consistent in words and deeds?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Mario González & Raúl Tadle, 2018. "Monetary Policy Effects on the Chilean Stock Market: An Automated Content Approach," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 817, Central Bank of Chile.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Landerretche, Oscar, 2010. "Comment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123196, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. 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.
    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. 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. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Pär Österholm, 2005. "The Taylor Rule: A Spurious Regression?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 217-247, July.
    7. Pablo Pincheira & Hernán Rubio, 2010. "The Low Predictive Power of Simple Phillips Curves in Chile: A Real-Time Evaluation," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 559, Central Bank of Chile.
    8. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Helmi, Mohamad Husam & Çatık, Abdurrahman Nazif & Menla Ali, Faek & Akdeniz, Coşkun, 2018. "Monetary policy rules in emerging countries: Is there an augmented nonlinear taylor rule?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 306-319.
    9. Donato Masciandaro & Davide Romelli & Gaia Rubera, 2021. "Monetary policy and financial markets: evidence from Twitter traffic," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 21160, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    10. Selva Demiralp & Hakan Kara & Pinar Ozlu, 2011. "Monetary Policy Communication Under Inflation Targeting : Do Words Speak Louder Than Actions?," Working Papers 1118, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    11. 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..
    12. 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..
    13. Ancil Crayton, 2018. "Central Bank Communication and the Yield Curve: A Semi-Automatic Approach using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization," Papers 1809.08718, arXiv.org.
    14. Hubert Paul, 2017. "Qualitative and quantitative central bank communication and inflation expectations," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-41, January.
    15. Cour-Thimann, Philippine & Jung, Alexander, 2021. "Interest-rate setting and communication at the ECB in its first twenty years," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Jakob Haan, 2008. "The effect of ECB communication on interest rates: An assessment," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 375-398, December.
    17. repec:udc:esteco:v:44:y:2017:i:2:p:97-124 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Gabriel Caldas Montes & Rodolfo Tomás da Fonseca Nicolay, 2015. "Central bank’s perception on inflation and inflation expectations of experts," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(6), pages 1142-1158, November.
    19. Martin T. Bohl & Dimitrios Kanelis & Pierre L. Siklos, 2022. "How Central Bank Mandates Influence Content and Tone of Communication Over Time," CQE Working Papers 9622, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster.
    20. Hamza Bennani & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2017. "The (home) bias of European central bankers: new evidence based on speeches," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(11), pages 1114-1131, March.
    21. Paul Hubert, 2014. "Disentangling qualitative and quantitative central bank influence," Working Papers hal-01098464, HAL.
    22. Jan-Egbert Sturm & Jakob Haan, 2011. "Does central bank communication really lead to better forecasts of policy decisions? New evidence based on a Taylor rule model for the ECB," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(1), pages 41-58, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    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:ehl:lserod:123267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.