The Measurement and Application of China's Environmental Policy Uncertainty Index : A Study Based on Text Analysis

Studies mainly focus on measuring the uncertainty of economic policy in different countries. However, few studies have focused on the construction of an environmental policy uncertainty index (EPUI). This study selects 460 newspapers from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure newspaper database from 2001 to 2016 and uses a text analysis method to directly construct China’s national, provincial, and prefecture-level EPUI. We have analyzed the distribution and fluctuation trend of the EPUI and investigated the impact of environmental policy uncertainty on environmental pollutant emissions at the prefecture level. The Chinese EPUI constructed for the first time in this study provides significant basic data for research in the environment and energy fields and provides important empirical evidence for achieving China’s carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals