Working Paper 106-2021 I February 2021 Tracking ECB’s Communication: Perspectives and Implications for Financial Markets Document for the exclusive attention of professional clients, investment services providers and any other professional of the financial industry Tracking ECB’s Communication: Perspectives and Implications for Financial Markets Abstract Roberta Fortes This article assesses the communication of the European University of Paris 1 Central Bank (ECB) using Natural Language Processing Panthéon Sorbonne (NLP) techniques. We show the evolution of discourse over
[email protected] time and capture the main themes of interest for the central bank that go beyond its traditional mandate of maintaining Théo Le Guenedal price stability, enlightening main concerns and themes of Quantitative Research discussion among board members. We also built sentiment
[email protected] signals compatible with any form of language, both formal and informal, an important step as the ECB aims to enhance communication with non-expert audiences. In a second step, we measure the impact of the ECB’s communication on the EUR/USD exchange rate. We found that our quantitative series, both topics and sentiment, improve financial-linked models consistently in all periods analyzed (2.5% on average). Meaningful signals comprise a broad range of subjects and vary in time. This suggests that overall ECB’s talk matters for asset prices, including themes not directly related to monetary policy. This result is particularly important in a context in which the ECB, as well as other major central banks, are moving towards integrating issues closer to the society into their scope of action, implying that subjects, which were considered peripheral, may become central.