In this paper, we examine whether a tone shock derived from European Central Bank communication helps predict ECB monetary policy decisions. To this purpose, we first use a bag-of-words approach and several dictionaries on the ECB's Introductory Statements to derive a measure of tone. Next, we orthogonalise the tone measure on the latest data available to market participants to compute the tone shock. Finally, we relate the tone shock to future ECB monetary policy decisions. We find that the tone shock is significantly and positively related to future ECB monetary policy decisions, even when controlling for market expectations of monetary policy and the Governing Council's inter-meeting communication. Further extensions show that the predictive ability of the tone shock is robust to (i) the normalization of the tone measure, (ii) alternative market expectations of monetary policy, and (iii) the horizon of macroeconomic variables used in the Taylor-type monetary policy rule. These findings highlight an additional channel through which ECB communication improves monetary policy predictability, suggesting that the ECB may have private information that it communicates through its Introductory Statements.

在本文中，我们研究了来自欧洲央行沟通的语调冲击是否有助于预测欧洲央行的货币政策决策。为此，我们首先使用词袋法和欧洲央行的介绍性声明中的几本词典来得出语调。接下来，我们根据可供市场参与者使用的最新数据对音调度量进行正交处理，以计算音调冲击。最后，我们将语调冲击与欧洲央行未来的货币政策决定联系起来。我们发现，即使在控制市场对货币政策的期望以及理事会之间的会议沟通时，这种语调冲击与欧洲央行未来的货币政策决定也具有显着正相关。进一步的扩展表明，音调冲击的预测能力对于（i）音调量度的归一化具有鲁棒性，（ii）市场对货币政策的期望，以及（iii）泰勒式货币政策规则中使用的宏观经济变量的范围。这些发现凸显了欧洲央行通过沟通提高货币政策可预测性的另一种渠道，这表明欧洲央行可能拥有通过介绍性声明进行沟通的私人信息。