To which degree can variation in sentiment-based indicators of central bank communication be attributed to changes in macroeconomic, financial, and monetary variables; idiosyncratic speaker effects; sentiment persistence; and random "noise" ? Using the Loughran and McDonald (2011) dictionary on a...

We investigate the informational role of trading volume and quote changes in VIX options with regard to future movements in the index, based upon a high-frequency framework. Our results reveal that whilst volume imbalances convey no significant predictive information, quote changes in VIX...

Svensson (2006) argues that Morris and Shin (2002) is, contrary to what is claimed, pro-transparency. This paper re-examines the issue but with an important modification to the original Morris and Shin framework. Recognizing that central banks impact on the economy not only indirectly via public...

The Board of Governors staff and the Federal Open Market Committee both publish macroeconomic forecasts. Romer and Romer (2008) show that policymakers' attempts to add information to the staff forecasts are counterproductive. In more recent years, however, policymakers have improved upon staff...

In the presence of idiosyncratic risk, the public revelation of information about uncertain aggregate outcomes such as policy choices can be detrimental to social welfare. By announcing informative signals on non-insurable aggregate risk, the policy maker distorts agents' insurance incentives...

Central banks communication has lately become an important tool to guide expectations and its impact on the economy has been acknowledged by the literature. Nowadays central banks speeches face an increasing variety of topics, which are not discriminated by text analysis. In this paper we...