FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank’s chief economist made dozens of private calls to banks and investors after policy meetings this year, breaking with the central bank’s usual practice of delivering information to everyone at the same time in an effort to clarify its sometimes-puzzling public pronouncements, according to three people with whom he spoke and a review of his schedule.
The calls began in March, after ECB President Christine Lagarde flummoxed traders by suggesting at a news conference that the central bank wouldn’t…
