Can plain-language central bank messages reach households?
Central bank communication is one of the rising keywords across the tracked journals, but few of those papers look at households. Language models can now rewrite a policy statement for any reader. Would households who receive such messages update their inflation expectations?
What prompted this#
"Central bank communication" grew across all journals (16 papers in July–September 2026 against about 9 expected) and in finance (10 against 4); see the trends page. Since October 2025, 58 papers carry a central-bank-communication or forward-guidance keyword (32 in economics, 26 in finance). Only 13 of them also carry a household, consumer, survey, expectations or public keyword, while "inflation expectations" appears on 86 papers.
Questions#
- In a randomized survey, do households who read a plain-language or personalized version of a policy statement change their inflation expectations more than those who read the original?
- Does the effect last, and does it change spending plans?
- Do people trust a message less if they know a machine wrote it?
Data that could help#
- Household expectation surveys, such as the Michigan Surveys of Consumers or central banks' own consumer surveys, with an experiment embedded.
- Policy statements and the layered, plain-language versions that several central banks already publish.
Next step#
Draft three versions of one recent policy statement (the original, a plain-language version and one personalized by a language model) and pilot them in an online survey with an expectations question.