Policy Change Index (PCI)
A Machine Learning Framework to Predict Policy Changes
The Policy Change Index (PCI) is a series of open-source machine learning projects that predict authoritarian regimes’ major policy moves by “reading” their propaganda publications. The first four projects inducted into the series are about China.
PCI-China: predicts China’s policy changes from 1951 Q1 to the present.
PCI-Personnel : tracks the rise of fall of top Chinese politicians around President Xi Jinping from 2007 to the present.
PCI-Crackdown: predicts how close in time the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests are to a Tiananmen-like crackdown by China.
PCI-Outbreak: measures the severity of an epidemic outbreak in China, such as COVID-19.
PCI-NKO: predicts North Korea’s policy changes from Apr 2022 to Feb 2024.
PCI-China and Major Policy Events in China, 1951 Q1 to 2024 Q3
A spike in the PCI-China signals a major policy change, while a vertical bar marks the ground truth of the change labeled by the event. The PCI-China often spikes months before policy changes take place, validating the index’s predictive power. Click here to learn more about how it works.
PCI-Personnel for Top Chinese Politicians Around President Xi Jinping
The value of an index measures how positive a Chinese politician’s public image is as perceived by the People’s Daily, the most prominent official newspapers of the Chinese Community Party. Click here to learn more about how it works.
PCI-Crackdown for 2019-20 and 2014 Hong Kong protests
The closer the PCI-Crackdown gets to the June 4 line, the higher the possibility of a Tiananmen-like crackdown. The PCI-Crackdown for the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests remained within three weeks from the crackdown line throughout 2019. The issue reemerged in 2020 as China pushed for a national security law. In comparison, the PCI-Crackdown for the 2014 Hong Kong protests is lower and downward-trending. Click here to learn more about how it works.
2019-20 Hong Kong protests
Second wave: Apr 16 to Jul 20, 2020
First wave: Jun 9, 2019 to Jan 7, 2020
2014 Hong Kong protests, Sep 26 to Dec 15
PCI-Outbreak for COVID-19 and official statistics in China (Jan 21 to Sep 15, 2020)
The index uses the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as the benchmark. The higher the indicator, the larger the scale of the outbreak. Click here to learn more about how it works.
PCI-NKO and Major Policy Events in North Korea, Apr 2022 to Feb 2024
A spike in the PCI-NKO signals a major policy change, while a vertical bar marks the ground truth of the change labeled by the event. Click here to learn more about how it works.
What’s new
Oct 4, 2024: The 2024 Q3 number of the PCI-China was released.
Sep 23, 2024: The PCI-NKO for predicting North Korea’s policy changes was launched.
Sep 17, 2024: Zhong and coauthors released a study about Xi’s power grip and the People’s Daily’s foreign news coverage.
Sep 11, 2024: The PCI-Personnel for top Chinese politicians was launched.
- Mar 19, 2024: PCI was featured in a Mercatus Policy Spotlight.
Dec 2022: The PCI’s analyses of China’s Covid policy were cited by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Aug 29, 2022: McDaniel and Zhong released an open-source analysis of risks to the U.S. economy if China invades Taiwan.
- May 7, 2022: Zhong told the origin story of the PCI in Washington Examiner.
- Feb 10, 2022: Zhong discussed with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich the PCI and the latest China news in the Newt’s World podcast.
- Dec 14, 2020: The PCI-Outbreak for COVID-19 in China was updated to September 15, 2020.
- Jul 20, 2020: The PCI-Crackdown for the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests was last updated.