Does Central Bank Tone Move Asset Prices?
87 Pages Posted: 14 Jul 2015 Last revised: 24 Oct 2019
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Does Central Bank Tone Move Asset Prices?
Does Central Bank Tone Move Asset Prices?
Date Written: October 23, 2019
Abstract
This paper shows that changes in the tone of central bank communication have a significant effect on asset prices. Tone captures how the central bank frames economic fundamentals and its monetary policy. When tone becomes more positive, stock prices increase, whereas credit spreads and volatility risk premia decrease. These tone effects are robust to controlling for fundamentals, policy actions, and other features of central bank communication. Our results suggest that communication tone is a generic instrument of monetary policy, which affects asset prices through a risk-based channel.
Keywords: monetary policy, central bank communication, textual analysis, risk premia, stock returns, volatility risk, credit spreads
JEL Classification: G10, G12, E43, E44, E58
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation