Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216647 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
MAGKS Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics No. 07-2020
Publisher: 
Philipps-University Marburg, School of Business and Economics, Marburg
Abstract: 
This paper studies the demand for information about monetary policy, while the literature on central bank transparency and communication typically studies the supply of information by the central bank or the reception of the information provided. We use a new data set on the number of views of the Federal Reserve's website to measure the demand for information. We show that exogenous news about the state of the economy as re flected in U.S. macroeconomic news surprises raise the demand for information about monetary policy. Surprises trigger an increase in the number of views of the policy-relevant sections of the website, but not the other sections. Hence, market participants do not only revise their policy expectations after a surprise, but actively acquire new information. We also show that attention to the Fed matters: a high number of views on the day before the news release weakens the high-frequency response of interest rates to macroeconomic surprises.
Subjects: 
macroeconomic announcements
nonfarm payroll
attention
event study
central bank communication
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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