People have more important things to do in their lives than think about interest rates and bank regulation, about price and financial stability. Or at least I hope they have. Indeed, central banks would be failing in their job if people were spending too much of their lives thinking or worrying about these issues. Nonetheless, the actions of central banks are important for most people at key decision points in their lives. At those points, a trusting and understanding relationship between the central bank and the public matters. It matters for people when making good decisions. It matters for the economy when following a good course. It matters for policymakers when setting good policy. That is why everyday economics, terrible title and all, matters to the Bank of England. 16  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  16  Annex  Figure 1 – Study of Mathematics  Per cent of total population at each age  1%  Undergraduate level  12%  A-level  75%  GCSE  100%  Pre-GCSE  Sources: HESA, Joint Council For Qualifications, ONS and Bank Calculations Notes: As mathematics is compulsory at younger ages, we assume that the percentage of students studying it pre-GCSE is 100%. Undergraduate level includes of the professional graduate certificate in education, foundation degrees, HND/DipHE and other undergraduate qualifications. This chart does not include Scottish qualifications.
43  If one feature of more effective communication with the general public is simplification, a second is story-telling. For most people, stories stick in a way facts and figures simply cannot. Recent experimental evidence has explored whether media narratives are able to stick in a way that can reshape public discourse, public opinion and public behaviour. 44  It finds compelling evidence that stories do just that. Some stories are, of course, more adhesive than others. I recently attended a conference on the merits of “Odyssean” and “Delphic” forward guidance. The use of Greek mythology is an example of story-telling. But are these stories sticky with the public? For most people, fictional goings-on in Ancient Greece several millennia ago are not especially sticky. Even modern-day citizens of Delphi might find them a stretch. The trick is in creating not just narratives but “popular narratives”, to use the language of George Akerlof and Robert Shiller. 45  One effective way of doing so is draw on stories that link to people’s personal, local or  recent experience. This helps people to visualise the story which, in turn, helps make it stick, in much the same way visualising a list of random items helps them stick in your memory. 42  The MPC’s decision to raise Bank Rate in November may also of course have had a role to play in generating extra hits. MuLuhan (1964). King, Schneer and White (2017). 45 See Shiller (2017).