This paper describes the process of constructing a dataset of available online press releases related to monetary policy decisions published by central banks that have been pursuing a form of inflation targeting. A total of 3,807 documents were considered, as the review encompasses 24 central banks over the past 30 years. To prepare the dataset for text-mining analysis, a cleaning procedure has been performed, which is also presented in detail. The next step was to look at the readability of the documents in order to detect any patterns in its changes. We find that while there is a significant variation between central banks, there is no clear time trend in the readability of the monetary policy press releases, i.e. some central banks tend to have easier-to-read press releases than others, and this does not change with time. In turn, there is a weak indication that following the Global Financial Crisis outbreak and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis apogee, as well as at the time of withdrawing unconventional measures introduced in response to those two emergencies, press releases of advanced economy inflation targeters got temporarily harder-to-read. Overall, this paper can be viewed as a first attempt towards assessing qualitatively central banks’ transparency, with respect to a flagship communication tool of inflation targeters, namely their monetary policy press releases.

中文翻译：

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24个通胀目标央行的货币政策新闻稿——主要特征和复杂性比较

本文描述了构建与一直追求某种形式的通胀目标制的央行发布的货币政策决策相关的可用在线新闻稿数据集的过程。过去 30 年来，审查涵盖了 24 家央行，总共考虑了 3,807 份文件。为了准备用于文本挖掘分析的数据集，我们执行了清理程序，并详细介绍了该程序。下一步是查看文档的可读性，以检测其更改中的任何模式。我们发现，虽然各国央行之间存在显着差异，但货币政策新闻稿的可读性没有明显的时间趋势，即一些央行的新闻稿往往比其他央行更容易阅读，但这并不影响货币政策新闻稿的可读性。随着时间的推移而改变。反过来，有一个微弱的迹象表明，在全球金融危机爆发和欧洲主权债务危机达到顶峰之后，以及在撤回为应对这两次紧急情况而采取的非常规措施时，发达经济体通胀目标制定者的新闻稿暂时被搁置。更难阅读。总体而言，本文可以被视为定性评估央行透明度的首次尝试，涉及通胀目标制定者的旗舰沟通工具，即货币政策新闻稿。