, a retreating tide of public trust and understanding on the other. conventional means of communicating are unlikely to be able to reach those parts of society for whom mistrust and misunderstanding are most acute. to reach that wider audience, to close those trust and understanding deficits, central banks will need new tools and techniques. a new frontier for central bank engagement which tools and techniques? were this simply a case of producing more, trust and understanding problems would have been long since solved. it is not. as philosopher onora o ’ neill has argued, simply adding to reporting does little for accountability and trust - building. if reports are mostly unread or unreadable, smothering people in more words and numbers could even detract from trust and accountability. in one sense, this is not a new point. claude shannon, the grandfather of information theory, did not define information by words or digits. instead he defined it by whether uncertainty was reduced on the part of the receiver. if receivers are overwhelmed by the depth, discouraged by the density and bamboozled by the complexity, reporting can be disinformation on shannon ’ s criterion. for a chunk of society, the very volume of reporting may be increasing uncertainty and impairing information, understanding and trust. even the term “ central bank communication ” – a mainstay of central banking and a centrepiece of academic studies of central banks – may fail as a description of what is these days required to build trust and improve understanding. the quest to improve communications makes sense. but it has more than a hint of better sermons to the assembled congregation, enhanced education of an inattentive audience, a smoothlyswinging one - way door. communication means mouths. see binkley ( 1997 ). o ’ neill ( 2002, 2014 ). shannon ( 1948 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches these days, building trust and improving understanding may require a different approach. it may be less about communication than conversation, less about edicts than engagement, ideally on as personalised and localised a basis as possible. it may involve listening as much as speaking, understanding of the public as much as public understanding, a two - way door. conversation means ears as much as mouths. what new tools and techniques might help achieve this wider engagement? let me offer a few ideas, ranging from the workaday to the speculative. even more than usual, the speculative ideas are not the

adjectives and has a reading grade score of around 11. perhaps central bankers, like this one, have always been better at preaching than practicing. if so, that needs to change. and when better to change than now. this would be a brave new world for central banks. they do not need to be as magical as mandelbrot ’ s shaman, as good a storyteller as charles dickens, as great a showman as elvis. but to make a success of this new world, central banks will need to be brave. roy et al ( 2012 ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches annex chart 1 : number of central banks number of central banks ecb sveriges riksbank bank of england bank of japan banque de france us federal reserve source : central banking directory chart 2 : percentage of independent central banks monetary policy objectives percentages of central banks all aspects source : garriga ( 2016 ) using index of cukierman et al ( 1992 ). notes : central banks with values greater or equal to 0. 4 on the index are defined as independent. ‘ monetary policy objectives ’ measures whether the central bank ’ s objective is focused on price stability. ‘ all aspects ’ also includes variables related to the appointment of the ceo / governor ; policy formulation ; and limitations on lending to the government. chart 3 : percentage of central banks with chart 4 : governors ’ and other policymakers ’ all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches responsibility for bank supervision speeches banking supervision inside the central bank banking supervision outside the central bank speeches per year percentages of central banks sources : bank regulation and supervision surveys : world source : bank of england. bank ( 2003, 2007, 2011 ). chart 5 : central bank transparency indices sveriges riksbank overall transparency score swiss national bank reserve bank of australia bank of canada norges bank reserve national bank of new zealand bank of japan european central bank federal reserve latest bank of england sources : dincer and eichengreen ( 2015 ) for data up to 2014, bank of england calculations based on the index of eijffinger and geraats ( 2006 ) for latest datapoint. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches chart 6a : mentions of central banks in the times newspaper bank of england number of mentions federal reserve 14, 000 number of mentions 4, 000