Central bankers should consider speaking less, a senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said this week. Antonella Tutino warned their messages may not be getting across as intended, on account of the public's limited attention span.

Households and firms cannot process all the economic information available to them, Tutino says, in an economic letter published by the Dallas Fed on May 17. Instead, they pick and choose; an example of "rationally inattentive" behaviour.

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