Dataset of central banker speeches

This website contains the dataset of central banker speeches collected for Campiglio et al. (2024). To the best of our knowledge, this dataset represents the most comprehensive collection of public speeches by central bankers. It was created by compiling all the primary and secondary materials available online (i.e. 143 central bank websites as well as the BIS repository of central banker speeches), and was supplemented as often as possible by digital and physical archives. It is also the first dataset to feature, for each speech, additional metadata information about the speaker (Gender and Role)

The dataset features 32,359 unique speeches from 131 central banks, for the period going from the beginning of January 1986 (date of the first online speech by a central bank) to the end of December 2021. Among those speeches, 4757 were spoken in a language other than english and translated using Microsoft machine-translation services.

The dataset is available free of charge for academic research and personal non-commercial use. It can be downloaded in various formats below, or explored using an interactive app with the link at the top of this page.

We are currently working on an update of the database, which will feature ~35,400 unique speeches from 131 central banks, for the period going from the beginning of January 1986 (date of the first online speech by a central bank) to the end of December 2023. The final database should be ready by the end of November.

When you use the index and its associated data, please acknowledge the following paper as the data source: