 When teachers announce the exam dates, they do so in order to change the behavior and expectations of their students, hoping they'll start studying and do better in the exam. Sometimes central banks also want to affect the expectations and behavior of people. And if they want to do this, they'll start announcing what they expect to do in the future. For example, to keep interest rates low for long. This is known as forward guidance. With inflation being persistently low, many central banks lowered short-term interest rates In order to then provide more stimulus to the economy, they also started announcing that they expect interest rates to be low for long. This gives you more certainty about the future. You can better plan investment projects or larger purchases, knowing that you'll be able to get a cheap loan also in the future if you need it. Forward guidance is a new monetary policy tool that affects the expectations of people and can help boost the economy.