We analyze whether households' savings behaviour was affected by adverse experiences during the crisis and knowledge about banking supervision. Using a survey among Dutch households, we find that both factors have affected the allocation of savings. Individuals whose bank went bankrupt or...

Using eight annual surveys from the Netherlands between 2006 and 2013, we examine whether financial crisis experiences affect trust in banks, trust in the banking supervisor, and generalized trust. Adverse experiences during the financial crisis do not only directly lower trust in banks, but...

We study whether clarity of central bank inflation reports affects return volatility in financial markets. We measure clarity of reports by the Czech National Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and Sveriges Riksbank using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, a standard readability...

Since its inception, the European Central Bank (ECB) has regarded communication as anintegral part of its monetary policy. This paper describes and evaluates ECB communications during the first decade of its operation.We conclude that, overall, ECB communication has contributed to the...

Drawing on the literature on organizational psychology, this paper discusses the potential of studying corporate culture and organizational behaviour for financial supervision. First, we discuss how corporate culture is often linked to long-term firm performance. From that perspective, factoring...

When does the general public lose trust in banks? We provide empirical evidence using responses by Dutch survey participants to eight hypothetical scenarios. We find that members of the general public care strongly about executive compensation. Negative media reports, falling stock prices, and...

The literature on the effectiveness of macroprudential policy tools is still in its infancy and has so far provided only limited guidance for policy decisions. In recent years, however, increasing efforts have been made to fill this gap. Progress has been made in embedding macroprudential policy...

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....

We investigate whether ECB balance sheet policy announcements in the wake of the global financial crisis have affected the ECB.s monetary policy credibility as measured by long-term inflation expectations, by looking at their effects on euro area inflation swap rates of maturities up to 10...

Wordscores uses word frequencies to extract information from texts with known policy positions. Wordscores uses this information to estimate the unknown policy positions of so - called virgin texts. We apply Wordscores to the ECB President's introductory statements following Governing Council...