Central Bank Communication and Policy Interest Rate

Abstract

Central bank communications play an important role in the monetary policy. In the inflation-targeting frameworks, central bank communications might guide public to shape inflation expectations and then determine actual inflation rates through which the policy interest rates policy would manage them. This paper studied the impact and central bank monetary policy communications on the policy interest rate. Unlike other studies, this paper uses two stages. First, we estimate the impact of central bank communication on the inflation expectation gap. Second, we use the estimated value of inflation expectation gap to predict the policy interest rate. The study found evidence that economic agents analyse the Governor Board of Central Bank of Indonesia meeting decisions every month to shape their inflation expectation. Therefore, the difference between inflation expectation and actual inflation tends to narrow. The inflation expectation gap affects the policy interest rates in Indonesia. In other words, the policy interest rates can control the inflation rate and anchor expectations as required by the inflation-targeting framework.