ECONDAT 2026 Spring meeting - Economics with Nontraditional Data and Analytical Tools

The ECONDAT 2026 Spring Meeting invites researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from all related fields to explore these themes. This event continues the ECONDAT Program’ effort to bring together an interdisciplinary community to foster innovative research and informs better decision-making in both academic and policy environments. The event is organized by Banque de France, Bank of England, European Central Bank, and CEBRA.

08:15 – 08:45 Registration

08:45 – 09:00 Opening Remarks
Sebastian Barnes (OECD) – Tracking a volatile and complex world – OECD experiences with big data

Session 1: Economic Narratives – 09:00 – 10:30
Chair: Jean-Charles Bricongne (Banque de France)

09:00 – 09:30 Johannes Zahner (Goethe University Frankfurt) – Tracing the Spread of Inflation Narratives
Discussant: Alexandra Piller (Study Center Gerzensee & University of Bern)

09:30 – 10:00 Jérémie Cohen-Setton (International Monetary Fund) – Reading the Fund, A Systematic Analysis of IMF Fiscal Advice Using Large Language Models
Discussant: Auguste de Lambilly (Banque de France)

10:00 – 10:30 Farah Tohme (Goethe University) – Fiscal Narratives and Inflation
Discussant: Yann Dorville (OECD)

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break

Session 2: Granular Data for Macroeconomic Analysis – 11:00 – 12:30
Chair: Joel Suss (Financial Times, London School of Economics)

11:00 – 11:30 Prachi Srivastava (University of Heidelberg) – Nowcasting Economic Growth with Machine Learning and Satellite Data
Discussant: Dragos Gorduza (Bank of England)

11:30 – 12:00 Ana Pastor Merino (Universitat Politècnica de València) – Does AI Boost Firm Productivity? A Web Scraping and LLMs Approach
Discussant: Eurydice Fotopoulou (International Monetary Fund) 12:00 – 12:30

Maxime Fajeau (University of Lille) – Climate Shocks and U.S. Bank Stability
Discussant: Hamza Bennani (University of Nantes)

Lunch & Poster Session – 12:30 – 13:45

• Reading Between the Lines: Uncovering Inflation Expectations from Multilingual Media Coverage – Alexandra Piller (Study Center Gerzensee & University of Bern)
• Attention, Inflation Expectations, and the Transmission of Monetary Policy – Luigi Longo (European Commission)
• Who Benefits When Banks Go Digital? FinTech Adoption and SME Lending in the UK – Alexander Prior (Bank of England)
• Enforcing Prudential Discipline: A Rule-Constrained LLM Framework for Financial Stability Reports – Antoaneta Amza (National Bank of Romania)
• Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Risk: A Machine Learning Approach – Alvaro Ortiz (BBVA Research)
• Financial Market Effects of European Capital Market Integration – Andrea Coletta (Banca d’Italia)

Keynote – 13:45 – 14:45
Barbara Rossi (CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra) : TBC
Discussant: Anna Simoni (CREST, CNRS, École Polytechnique, ENSAE)

Session 3: LLMs for Economic Modelling – 14:45 – 16:15
Chair: Jerome Coffinet (Banque de France)

14:45 – 15:15 Tara M. Sinclair (The George Washington University) – FOMC In Silico: A Multi-Agent System for Monetary Policy Decision Modelling
Discussant: Andreas Joseph (Bank of England)

15:15 – 15:45 Francesca Monti (UC Louvain and CEPR) – In the Fed we trust? Measuring trust in central banking and its effects on the macroeconomy
Discussant: Luigi Longo (European Commission)

15:45 – 16:15 Giuseppe Matera (EPFL and Swiss Finance Institute) – Corporate Earnings Calls and Analyst Beliefs
Discussant: Hoang Nhan Ha (IÉSEG)

16:15 – 16:45 Coffee Break

Session 4: Forecasting and Interpretability - 16:45 – 18:15   
Chair: Roland Lubrano Di Scampamorte (Banque de France)  

16:45–17:15  Gabriel Rodriguez-Rondon (Bank of Canada) – Implied Factors: The Linear Skeleton of Machine Learning Forecasts 
Discussant: Antoaneta Amza (National Bank of Romania) 

17:15–17:45 Arthur Stalla-Bourdillon (European Central Bank) – Predicting Oil Prices with LLMs: Tapping into OPEC and IEA Reports 
Discussant: Alvaro Ortiz (BBVA Research) 

17:45–18:15  David Gauthier (Banque de France) – Small Talks and the Predictability of Monetary Policy Surprises 
Discussant: Jeremy Fouillard (PSE,INSEE)  

Closing Remarks - 18:15 – 18:30 
Jean-Charles Bricongne (Banque de France)

Organizers

• Tunrayo Adeleke-Larodo (Bank of England) 
• Andy Blake (Bank of England) 
• Jean-Charles Bricongne (Banque de France) 
• Dragos Gorduza (Bank of England) 
• Andreas Joseph (Bank of England) 
• Michele Lenza (European Central Bank) 
• Chiara Osbat (European Central Bank)
• Livia Silva Paranhos (Bank of England)