A Forward Guidance Indicator For The South African Reserve Bank: Implementing A Text Analysis Algorithm
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP04/2020Publication date: March 2020
Author(s):
[protected email address] (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)
The expansion of central bank communications and the increased use thereof as a policy tool to manage expectations have led to an area of research, semantic modelling, that analyses the words and phrases used by central banks. We use text-mining and text-analysis techniques on South African Reserve Bank monetary policy committee statements to construct an index measuring the stance of monetary policy: a forward guidance indicator (FGI). We show that, after controlling for market expectations, FGIs provide significant predictive power for future changes in the repurchase interest rate (the primary monetary policy instrument). Furthermore, we show that FGIs are primarily driven by inflation expectations, which highlights the strong link between the SARB's communication strategy and its inflation targeting mandate. In fact, we observe a systematic anti-inflation bias in the communicated stance of monetary policy---both absolutely and asymmetrically. The results are, however, sensitive to the selection of the dictionary used to analyse the text.
JEL Classification:C43, C53, E42, E47, E52, E58
Keywords:Monetary policy, Text analysis, Forward guidance, Inflation targeting
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Upcoming Seminars
Monday 28 July 202512:00-13:00
Dr Neil Rankin: Ceo Of Predictive Insights & Stellenbosch University
Topic: "TBC"
12:00-13:00
Prof Willem Boshoff: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Two competing approaches in South African competition policy: merger control and anti-cartel enforcement over the past 30 years"
12:00-13:00
Professor Johan Fourie: Stellenbosch University
Topic: "Economic History: TBC"
BER Weekly
25 Jul 2025 Budget hurdle cleared, but US tariff implementation remains a riskIt was another big week on the local political front, but with some constructive momentum. On the trade front, ahead of next week’s 1 August deadline, Trump announced another “massive” trade deal with Japan. The upcoming week is busy, with a slew of global and domestic data releases and several monetary policy decisions, including the SARB....
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