Can the tone of central bankers’ speeches help shape inflation expectations?: Evidence from Japan

Abstract

Using survey data on households’ inflation expectations in Japan, this study investigates how the tone of central bankers’ speeches, measured with FinBERT, a domain-specific large language model, affects these expectations across the business cycle. Our findings indicate that a positive tone in central bank communications significantly boosts inflation expectations during recessions by increasing public confidence and promoting beliefs about future inflation. By contrast, during expansions, this positive tone has little impact. We also find that monetary policy shocks do not significantly affect inflation expectations in Japan. Given the country’s unique economic challenges and prolonged deflation, these findings can provide important policy implications for Japan, as managing inflation expectations is critical to its monetary policy. Overall, our results suggest that central bankers’ speeches in Japan play an important role in shaping inflation expectations, particularly during economic downturns, beyond the influence of conventional policy rate adjustments.