Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index for China’s 31 provinces
Jian Yu, Xunpeng Shi, Dongmei Guo, Longjian Yang
Abstract: Following the methodology of Baker et al. (2016), we constructed a set of EPU indexes at the provincial level in China. First, we selected the daily newspapers of 31 provinces in China as the source for news media reports. Second, we made the following provisions on the definition of the EPU index obtained through keyword searches: if there was at least one economic policy keyword and at least one keyword expressing uncertainty, the news article was considered a target article. Third, we calculated the annual total number of target articles for each of the 31 provinces, and divided it by the total number of target articles in the newspapers that contained the keyword “economy” in that year, to obtain the article proportion of the EPU in the 31 provinces. Fourth, we standardized the proportion of EPU articles in the 31 provinces by using the standard deviation of each province to obtain the EPU index for the 31 provinces.
Table 1 Comparison of keywords criteria between Baker’s China EPU and China’s provincial EPU
| Keywords criteria | Baker’s China EPU | China’s provincial EPU |
| Economic | economy, economic | 经济 |
| Policy | policy, spending, budget, political, interest rate, reform, government, Beijing, authorities, tax, regulation, regulatory, Central Bank, People’s Bank of China, PBOC, deficit, WTO | （促进、刺激、扩大）消费、调整利率/利率调整、（扩大、减少）投资、（增加、减少）税收/减税/税收政策/财税改革、财政支出/财政体制/财政刺激、货币/货币政策、扩大出口、增值税/消费税/企业所得税/个人所得税/房产税/关税、转移支付、地方债务、养老金、政策试点、加强监管 |
| Uncertainty | uncertain, uncertainty | 不确定、预测、预计、试点、试行、示范、或许、可能、有待、有望 |
| Country | China, Chinese | 中国，我国，国内 |
Here, we present a provincial EPU index to characterize the province-level EPU for China’s 31 provinces from 2000 to 2017.
Please cite the following papers when using this data. Many thanks! We will keep updating the index when the new data come in.
Citation: Yu, J., Shi, X., Guo, D., Yang, L., 2021. Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm carbon emissions: Evidence using a China provincial EPU index, Energy Economics, Vol. 94, No.105071.
