The Relationship between Government Information Supply and Public Information Demand in the Early Stage of COVID-19 in China—An Empirical Analysis

Accurate and effective government communication is essential for public health emergencies. To optimize the effectiveness of government crisis communication, this paper puts forward an analytical perspective of supply–demand matching based on the interaction between the government and the public. We investigate the stage characteristics and the topic evolutions of both government information supply and public information demand through combined statistical analysis, text mining, text coding and cluster analysis, using empirical data from the National Health Commission’s WeChat in China. A quantitative measure reflecting the public demand for government information supply is proposed. Result indicates that the government has provided a large amount of high-intensity epidemic-related information, with six major topics being the medical team, government actions, scientific protection knowledge, epidemic situation, high-level deployment and global cooperation. The public’s greatest information needs present different characteristics at different stages, with “scientific protection knowledge”, “government actions” and “medical teams” being the most needed in the outbreak stage, the control stage and the stable stage, respectively. The subject of oversupply is “medical team”, and the subject of short supply is “epidemic dynamics” and “science knowledge”. This paper provides important theoretical and practical value for improving the effectiveness of government communication in public health crises.

Bland–Altman Limits of Agreement from a Bayesian and Frequentist Perspective

Bland–Altman agreement analysis has gained widespread application across disciplines, last but not least in health sciences, since its inception in the 1980s. Bayesian analysis has been on the rise due to increased computational power over time, and Alari, Kim, and Wand have put Bland–Altman Limits of Agreement in a Bayesian framework (Meas.Phys.Educ.Exerc.Sci.2021,25,137–148). We contrasted the prediction of a single future observation and the estimation of the Limits of Agreement from the frequentist and a Bayesian perspective by analyzing interrater data of two sequentially conducted, preclinical studies. The estimation of the Limits of Agreement θ1 and θ2 has wider applicability than the prediction of single future differences. While a frequentist confidence interval represents a range of nonrejectable values for null hypothesis significance testing of H0: θ1 ≤ -δ or θ2 ≥ δ against H1: θ1 > -δ and θ2 < δ, with a predefined benchmark value δ, Bayesian analysis allows for direct interpretation of both the posterior probability of the alternative hypothesis and the likelihood of parameter values. We discuss group-sequential testing and nonparametric alternatives briefly. Frequentist simplicity does not beat Bayesian interpretability due to improved computational resources, but the elicitation and implementation of prior information demand caution. Accounting for clustered data (e.g., repeated measurements per subject) is well-established in frequentist, but not yet in Bayesian Bland–Altman analysis.

COVID–19 Information, Demand and Willingness to Pay for Protective Gear in the UK

In the first month of the UK first lockdown, we studied the demand and willingness to pay (WTP) for hand sanitizer gel, disposable face masks and disposable gloves, and how information on tested people and coronavirus deaths explains the demand and WTP for these products. The specific hypotheses to test and concrete questions to study were pre-registered in AsPredicted (#38962) on 10 April 2020, and an online survey was launched in Prolific on a sample of the UK general population representative by age, sex and ethnicity on 11 April 2020. We find that there is a demand for these products, estimate the average WTP for them, and show that the provision of information affected the demand (and WTP) for disposable face masks. Providing information on the numbers of coronavirus cumulative tested people and coronavirus cumulative deaths increases the stated demand for disposable face masks by about 8 percentage points [95% CI: 0.8, 15.1] and 11 percentage points [95% CI: 3.7, 18.2], respectively. JEL Classifications: C99, D12, I12, I18

CENTRAL BANK COMMUNICATION DESIGN: TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY OF MONETARY POLICY

The object of the article is central bank communication design (particularly target audience, channels and instruments) and central banks’ transparency measurement. The purpose is to summarise the central bank communication policy's conceptual basics and clarify how transparent the NBU’s monetary policy is. Methodology. The paper applies the Dincer and Eichengreen (2014) and Al-Mashat et al. (2018) methods of transparency measurement, using the NBU’s published documents and website data as of 2021. Results. It has been emphasized that communication design should be based on central bank’s communication objectives, information demand from defined stakeholders and target groups, capabilities of application of channels and instruments. Ensuring confidence in monetary policy calls for simplified language and format that reflects the general public's interest. The shift to the growing role of the type of communication channel and interaction of central bank with the general public are marked out. The meaning of transparency, criteria, and indices (Eijffinger-Geraats, Dincer-Eichengreen, Crowe-Meade, Cournede-Minegishi, CBT-IT index) are under consideration. According to Dincer and Eichengreen, the NBU’s transparency index reaches almost a perfect score of 12 (out of 15), affirming NBU’s political and policy transparency improvements. The NBU’s CBT-IT transparency index scores 11.45 (out of 20), which points to the need to eliminate gaps of the FPAS designed to support full-fledged inflation- forecast-targeting (3.2 out of 9) in the light of improvements in the monetary policymaking process (5.75 out of 7) and transparency about monetary policy objectives (2.5 out of 3). Practical implications. The enhancement of the NBU’s transparency level reflects the development of its communication policy as transparency of monetary policy requires constant and coherent messages via diversified channels and instruments for a defined target audience, following a clear purpose of strategic communication. Value/originality. It has been highlighted that central bank communication design is the basis for financial market participants' trust, favouring monetary policy transparency.