We study how financial market participants process news from four major central banks — the Bank of England (BoE), the Bank of Japan (BoJ), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Federal Reserve (Fed) — using a novel survey of 195 financial market participants from around the world. Our...

This paper studies monetary policy committee transparency (MPCT) based on a new index that measures central bankers' educational and professional backgrounds as disclosed through central bank websites. Based on a novel cross-sectional data set covering 75 central banks, we investigate the...

The European Central Bank has assigned a special role to money in its two pillar strategy and has received much criticism for this decision. In this paper, we explore possible justifications. The case against including money in the central bank's interest rate rule is based on a standard model...

In the New-Keynesian model, optimal interest rate policy under uncertainty is formulated without reference to monetary aggregates as long as certain standard assumptions on the distributions of unobservables are satisfied. The model has been criticized for failing to explain common trends in...

In this paper, we study whether central bank communication has a positive effect on market participants' perception of central banks' (i) credibility, (ii) unorthodox measures, and (iii) independence. We utilise a survey of more than 550 financial market participants from around the world who...

This paper reviews the rationale for quantitative easing when central bank policy rates reach near zero levels in light of recent announcements regarding direct asset purchases by the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Empirical evidence...

The ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court and its call for conducting and communicating proportionality assessments regarding monetary policy have been the subject of some controversy. However, it can also be understood as a way to strengthen the de-facto independence of the European...

We examine howthe verbal complexity of ECB communications affectsfi-nancial market trading based on high-frequency data fromEuropean stock index futures trading. Studying the 34 events between May 2009 and June 2017, during which the ECB Governing Council press conferences covered unconventional...

Using an event-study design, we investigate monetary policy interest-rate-to-performance sensitivity of the European banking sector over the 07/2012-06/2017 period when interest rates were (close to) zero. We apply the Wordscores approach to introductory statements of ECB's Governing Council...