New Delhi, Aug. 27 -- The 2008 financial crisis marked a turning point for many financial and economic orthodoxies. It even prompted a revisit of the array of tools a central bank could deploy in a crisis. In its aftermath, a consensus emerged that communication should join the toolkit as an indispensable instrument.

This idea acquired greater salience as central banks globally began adopting explicit price-stability objectives-or specific inflation targets-as the fulcrum of monetary policy.

Then complexity set in. Central banks began crafting their words differentially for different ears; the monetary policy statement, its report, utterances to the media, details of the rate-setting huddle, background information, speeches and working ...