Secrets of the Temple or Noise of the Agora?

Abstract

This study sets out to investigate whether the Federal Reserve System is able to efficiently manage the communicative challenge of pandering to the different demands of distinct target audiences—households, firms, banks, and the government. The empirical methodology for this analysis builds on the growing literature analyzing central bank communications to better understand the political and financial implications of monetary policy. We hope to contribute to this field of research by (1) creating a new database of over fifty years of speeches (2) devising a new method for analyzing communications that considers different audiences, and (3) providing empirical evidence for the observation that monetary policy is not neutral, i.e., that communications are positively or negatively biased in favor of some economic groups over others. The results of this analysis show that Fed central bankers communicate differently in response to a speaker’s audience. The political and financial implications suggest that central bank communications may inspire more confidence and higher efficiency in achieving stable long-term interest rates when communications are targeted.