From Tone to Trajectory: Continuous Sentiment and the Shape of Monetary Policy Communication

从基调到轨迹：连续情感与货币政策沟通的形态

Abstract: Central bank press conferences are not merely information releases --- they are structured narratives. We study whether the shape of sentiment within a statement, not just its average tone, carries policy-relevant signals.

摘要： 央行新闻发布会不仅仅是信息的发布，更是结构化的叙事。我们研究了声明中情感的“形态”（而不仅仅是平均基调）是否携带了与政策相关的信号。

Constructing sentiment arcs for ECB and Fed press conferences along three dimensions --- monetary stance, economic outlook, and uncertainty --- we assess their predictive content for policy rate changes, inflation expectations, and forecaster disagreement.

通过在货币立场、经济前景和不确定性这三个维度上构建欧洲央行（ECB）和美联储（Fed）新闻发布会的情感弧线，我们评估了它们对政策利率变化、通胀预期以及预测者分歧的预测能力。

Our findings show that arc shape robustly predicts rate decisions beyond lexicon-based benchmarks at both institutions --- it is not merely whether a statement sounds hawkish or economically optimistic on average, but how these sentiments are sequenced and emphasized across the statement, that carries the policy signal.

研究结果表明，情感弧线的形态在两家机构中均能稳健地预测利率决策，且效果优于基于词汇表的基准模型——携带政策信号的不仅仅是声明听起来平均是“鹰派”还是“经济乐观”，而是这些情感在整个声明中是如何排序和强调的。

Arc features also shape how professional forecasters update inflation expectations and how much they disagree, pointing to a receiver-side effect distinct from the direct policy signal.

情感弧线的特征还影响了专业预测者更新通胀预期的方式及其分歧程度，这指向了一种区别于直接政策信号的“接收端效应”。

These findings suggest that communication design --- the sequencing and emphasis of policy language across a statement --- is a first-order feature of the policy signal, not a second-order refinement.

这些发现表明，沟通设计——即政策语言在声明中的排序与强调——是政策信号的一阶特征，而非二阶的修饰。