Does clarity make central banks more engaging? Lessons from ECB communications

Despite increasing communication efforts, it may be difficult for central banks to engage the public, as their language is often too difficult to understand for most citizens. Focusing on the case of the European Central Bank (ECB), we hypothesise that greater communication clarity is conducive to stronger engagement. We rely on readability metrics to measure the clarity of ECB communications. We show that communication clarity is a significant and robust predictor of the media engagement generated by the ECB with its speeches, press conferences and tweets. Our findings are validated by a placebo test and have significant policy implications for central bank communication. •Central bank communication has traditionally been very difficult to understand.•We hypothesise that clarity affects engagement with central bank communication.•Our analysis is based on ECB speeches, press conferences and tweets.•Readability metrics are used to measure the clarity of ECB communications.•Clarity is a robust predictor of the ECB’s traditional and social media engagement.