The introduction of inflation targets in Canada in 1991 ostensibly clarified the objectives of monetary policy, namely the pursuit of price stability. In doing so, one of the objectives of the new policy was to ensure that the public would henceforth be able to assess more easily monetary policy...

Media coverage of monetary policy actions is a central channel of a central bank’s communication with the wider public, and thus an important factor for its credibility and policy effectiveness. This paper analyses the coverage which ECB monetary policy decisions receive in the print media,...

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB’s objectives is far from perfect. Both a...