by Rongrong Sun
The Sun-MP index measures the general monetary conditions in China from 2000 to 2018, on a quarterly basis. Sun (2018) develops a narrative index to comprehensively measure the PBC's policy stance (Sun-MP index), based on the additional information on policy-makers’ intentions extracted from the PBC's documents. It is a five-value index on a quarterly basis. The policy stance of -2 refers to strong ease, indicating a strong emphasis on promoting real growth; 2 for strong tightening that indicates a strong policy emphasis on inflation reduction; -1 for ease and 1 for tightening, indicating mild emphases on real growth and inflation control, respectively; the value of 0 stands for a neutral monetary policy stance.

Note: Three grey shaded areas are the contractionary episodes (2004Q2, 2008Q1-2008Q3 and 2011Q1-2011Q4), identified in Sun (2013), when the PBC took various measures to rein in high inflation.
Download the data (2000q1 - 2018q4)
Please cite as follows
Rongrong Sun "A Narrative Indicator of Monetary Conditions in China", International Journal of Central Banking, 14(4): 1-42.
Updates
The SUN-MP index is updated regularly (every year).
Papers using this index
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Klingelhöfer and Sun (2017) [CFDS Discussion Paper 2017/4: Macroprudential Policy, Central Banks and Financial Stability: Evidence from China] use this index and also develop a comparable narrative index but that measures the PBC´s policy actions to safeguard financial stability.