Do deeds match words? India’s monetary policy needs to “walk the talk” for inflation anchoring

Abstract

Transparent and consistent communication is integral for effective central bank policymaking. The challenge is more acute in emerging markets where the spectrum of audience is wide and significantly heterogenous, each with their own information needs. To cater to this diverse spectrum, several central banks publish the records on Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decision, detailing the minutes and voting by members. Whether such voting pattern by the members is consistent with their sentiments as embedded in the minutes of meetings remains an open question. To address this issue, we utilise data from Indian MPC, compute a sentiment index across member-meetings, and correlate it with their voting behaviour, after controlling for other confounding factors. Unlike prior studies, our analysis onboards a neutral sentiment, in addition to hawkishness and dovishness. The findings reveal that sentiments expressed by members in the MPC meetings is not always reflected in their voting behaviour, creating a chasm between deeds (voting) and words (sentiments). Robustness tests reinforce these findings, although there exist differential effects across internal versus external members. From a policy standpoint, the analysis suggests that MPCs need to ‘walk the talk' for effective inflation anchoring.