Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

No 261: The Information Content of Central Bank Minutes

Mikael Apel () and Marianna Blix Grimaldi ()
Additional contact information
Mikael Apel: Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden, Postal: Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden
Marianna Blix Grimaldi: Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden, Postal: Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: One characteristic feature of central banks today is that policy decisions are almost exclusively made by a committee rather than by a single policy maker. Another is that central banks are considerably more transparent than they used to be. Together, this has brought to the fore an important but so far unresolved issue: to what extent should a central bank’s communication reflect the full spectrum of opinions among its committee members? Does information on all members’ views make monetary policy easier to understand and predict, or does it make it harder? We address this issue by employing a novel method. We measure the sentiment and tone of the minutes of the Swedish central bank using an automated content analysis that converts the qualitative information in the minutes to a quantitative measure. We find that this measure is useful in predicting future policy rate decisions.

Keywords: Central Bank Communication; Minutes; Content Analysis

JEL-codes: D71; D83; E52; E58

26 pages, April 1, 2012

Full text files

rap_wp261_120426.pdf PDF-file 

Download statistics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Lena Löfgren ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:13:28.