Central Banks as Educators

In recent years, central bankers’ speeches and other forms of communication have become pedagogical in nature, aiming to shape public knowledge, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes. With the shift toward expectations management as a monetary policy tool, central banks’ educational role has become a central component of their monetary policymaking, and central bank communication with the public has become a rapidly-growing area of research. I argue that this research is closely related, both thematically and methodologically, to the field of educational psychology. I discuss insights from educational psychology research that could guide central bank communication research—including insights about the challenges and pitfalls that both fields share.