Central Bank Texts Database

This repository contains a collection of official communications from three major central banks: the Federal Reserve (US), European Central Bank (EU), and Bank of Israel (BoI). The database includes interest rate announcements, meeting minutes, and speeches spanning from 1998 to 2018/2020, providing researchers with valuable sources for analyzing central bank communication.

Database Value

The texts in this collection offer researchers access to:

    • Complete transcripts of monetary policy deliberations
    • Official interest rate announcements and accompanying statements
    • Speeches by governors, deputy governors, and board members
    • Press conference transcripts and introductory statements
    • Detailed accounts of policy meetings and decision-making processes

These documents provide critical insights for research in monetary economics, financial markets, communication strategy, text mining, and policy analysis. Each text includes the original publication URL for verification and further context.

Citation Requirements

Important information: This database is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY license, which requires appropriate attribution when using these materials. If you use these texts in your research, you have to cite the corresponding publication as detailed below.

For Federal Reserve texts:
Benchimol, Jonathan, Kazinnik, Sophia, & Saadon, Yossi. (2025). Federal Reserve communication and the COVID-19 pandemic. Manchester School, forthcoming. 10.1111/manc.12520

For European Central Bank texts:
Benchimol, Jonathan, Caspi, Itamar, & Kazinnik, Sophia. (2023). Measuring communication quality of interest rate announcements. The Economists’ Voice, De Gruyter, 20(1), 43-53. 10.1515/ev-2022-0023

For Bank of Israel texts:
Benchimol, Jonathan, Kazinnik, Sophia, & Saadon, Yossi. (2022). Text mining methodologies with R: an application to central bank texts. Machine Learning with Applications, Elsevier, 8, 100286. 10.1016/j.mlwa.2022.100286

Note on multiple central bank sources: If your research utilizes texts from two or more central banks, please cite all corresponding papers. For example, research comparing Federal Reserve and ECB communications would necessitate citing both the Benchimol et al. (2023,2025) papers.

File Organization

Each text file follows a consistent naming convention:

    • Federal Reserve and ECB files: YYYYMMDD.txt (year-month-day)
    • Bank of Israel files: DDMMYYYY.txt (day-month-year)

Speech texts are categorized into three types:

    • Governor speeches (gov)
    • Deputy Governor speeches (dgov)
    • Board Member speeches (bm)

Each text file contains:

    • Original URL source
    • Main title
    • Subtitle (when available)
    • Full text content

Data Processing Resources

For detailed information on the methodologies used to process and analyze these texts, please refer to the Code Ocean replication files available at: 10.24433/CO.1132001.v1

When using these processing methodologies in your research, please cite the Code Ocean repository and the appropriate paper listed above.

Sample Applications

These texts have been used in published research to:

    • Analyze shifts in central bank communication during the COVID-19 pandemic
    • Measure and evaluate the communication quality of interest rate announcements
    • Develop and test text mining methodologies for economic policy analysis
    • Examine the relationship between communication clarity and market reactions

By making these texts available to the research community, we aim to facilitate further advances in understanding central bank communication and its economic effects. Thank you in advance for using our research for your research.

License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Permits almost any use subject to providing credit and license notice. Frequently used for media assets and educational materials. The most common license for Open Access scientific publications. Not recommended for software.

Permissions: Commercial use; Modification; Distribution; Private use.
Limitations: Liability; Trademark use; Patent use; Warranty.

License details

Download

Federal Reseve Texts (zip, 14Mo)
European Central Bank Texts (zip, 16Mo)
Bank of Israel Texts (zip, 3Mo)
Full Central Bank Database (zip, 33Mo)