Summary Report on the NBB Listens Portal

This article reports on the main findings from the “NBB Listens portal”, an online questionnaire for Belgian citizens that formed part of the strategy review undertaken by the ECB and the Eurosystem national central banks. The open-ended responses were classified by combining human reading with text analysis tools.

The questionnaire is divided into four topics and asks such questions as:

  • Price stability: How important is predictable inflation? Are you worried about too low or too high inflation? For which types of goods and services do you feel the effects of price changes the most?
  • Economic expectations and concerns: What economic concerns are you facing? How do low interest rates and monetary policy generally affect you?
  • Other themes: Do you think the NBB and ECB should pay more attention to issues other than price stability? How will climate change affect you and the economy?
  • Communication: To what extent do you feel well informed by the NBB and the ECB? What could we do to raise your understanding of our policy decisions and their impact on you?