Abstract: After the international financial crisis in 2008, in response to the deterioration of the financial environment and the bottleneck of traditional monetary policy triggered by the zero interest rate constraint, "forward-looking guidance" began to be adopted by central banks in major developed economies as a central communication and expectations management tool. This paper organizes, evaluates, and outlooks the latest research findings on forward-looking monetary policy guidance from three aspects: connotation, mechanism of action, and effectiveness, and separately compares the latest literature on the mechanism of action based on adaptive learning and the "enigma of forward-looking guidance". The paper argues that forward-looking guidance should be implemented cautiously and gradually, attempts should be made to strengthen the combination of forward-looking guidance with new structural monetary policy tools, efforts should be made to establish a two-way multi-channel communication mechanism, and the transparency of monetary policy should be improved.

Keywords: central bank, forward-looking guidance, monetary policy