IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v332y2025ics0360544225028403.html

Economic policy uncertainty, coal price, and industrial output: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Lin, Boqiang
  • Wang, Zhijun

Abstract

Coal is the primary energy in China, and coal price volatility exerts profound implications for Chinese energy security and economic development. This study uses monthly data from January 2011 to December 2023 and employs a Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression with Stochastic Volatility (TVP-VAR-SV) model to explore the dynamic effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on coal price (CP) and industrial output (IO). Additionally, it encompasses a comparative assessment of the differences between oil price (OP) versus CP and distinguishes the varying impacts of different types of EPU. The findings include: (1) EPU raises CP while suppressing IO, with these effects evolving over time. (2) EPU has a lesser impact on CP than on OP. In the medium to long term, the effects of OP and CP fluctuations on IO are opposite, with OP fluctuations having a negative impact on industrial output. (3) Among various types of EPU, trade policy uncertainty significantly impacts CP, while monetary policy uncertainty predominantly shapes IO. Drawing from these insights, this paper proposes targeted policy recommendations aimed at helping decision-makers stabilize CP and ensure the stability of industrial production in the face of EPU.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin, Boqiang & Wang, Zhijun, 2025. "Economic policy uncertainty, coal price, and industrial output: Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:332:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225028403
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.137198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225028403
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.137198?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Huang, Yun & Luk, Paul, 2020. "Measuring economic policy uncertainty in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Wang, Siquan & Du, Anna Min & Lin, Boqiang, 2025. "Market mechanisms for energy transition: Fossil energy price shocks and irrational renewable energy financing," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Zhang, Yan & Xu, Yushi & Zhu, Xintong & Huang, Jionghao, 2024. "Coal price shock propagation through sectoral financial interconnectedness in China's stock market: Quantile coherency network modelling and shock decomposition analysis," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    4. Fontaine, Idriss & Didier, Laurent & Razafindravaosolonirina, Justinien, 2017. "Foreign policy uncertainty shocks and US macroeconomic activity: Evidence from China," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 121-125.
    5. Popp, Aaron & Zhang, Fang, 2024. "A note on international spillovers of economic policy uncertainty across business cycles: evidence from OECD countries," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 99-111, January.
    6. Bakas, Dimitrios & Triantafyllou, Athanasios, 2018. "The impact of uncertainty shocks on the volatility of commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 96-111.
    7. Zhou, Bingjun & Huang, Yan & Gao, Ke & Luo, Chunyang, 2024. "How geopolitical risk and economic policy uncertainty impact coal, natural gas, and oil rent? Evidence from China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    8. Lin, Boqiang & Liu, Xia, 2013. "Electricity tariff reform and rebound effect of residential electricity consumption in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 240-247.
    9. Liu, HuiHui & Zhang, ZhongXiang & Chen, Zhan-Ming & Dou, DeSheng, 2019. "The impact of China's electricity price deregulation on coal and power industries: Two-stage game modeling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Deng, Yue & Jiang, Wanyi & Wang, Zeyu, 2023. "Economic resilience assessment and policy interaction of coal resource oriented cities for the low carbon economy based on AI," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2013. "Corrigendum: Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 320-322, August.
    12. Shao, Ying-Hui & Yang, Yan-Hong & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "How does economic policy uncertainty comove with stock markets: New evidence from symmetric thermal optimal path method," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 604(C).
    13. Jouchi Nakajima, 2011. "Time-Varying Parameter VAR Model with Stochastic Volatility: An Overview of Methodology and Empirical Applications," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 29, pages 107-142, November.
    14. Cui, Xin & Wang, Chunfeng & Liao, Jing & Fang, Zhenming & Cheng, Feiyang, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty exposure and corporate innovation investment: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Wang, Xiaofei & Liu, Chuangeng & Chen, Shaojie & Chen, Lei & Li, Ke & Liu, Na, 2020. "Impact of coal sector’s de-capacity policy on coal price," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    16. Wen, Huwei & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Zhou, Fengxiu, 2022. "How does fiscal policy uncertainty affect corporate innovation investment? Evidence from China's new energy industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    17. Nong, Huifu & Liu, Hongxiao, 2023. "Measuring the frequency and quantile connectedness between policy categories and global oil price," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. Lyu, Yongjian & Wei, Yu & Hu, Yingyi & Yang, Mo, 2021. "Good volatility, bad volatility and economic uncertainty: Evidence from the crude oil futures market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    19. Gong, Xu & Lin, Boqiang, 2018. "Time-varying effects of oil supply and demand shocks on China's macro-economy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 424-437.
    20. Yan, Wan-Lin & Cheung, Adrian (Wai Kong), 2023. "The dynamic spillover effects of climate policy uncertainty and coal price on carbon price: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    21. Jiang, Qisheng & Cheng, Sheng, 2021. "How the fiscal and monetary policy uncertainty of China respond to global oil price volatility: A multi-regime-on-scale approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    22. Huang, Yisu & Ma, Feng & Bouri, Elie & Huang, Dengshi, 2023. "A comprehensive investigation on the predictive power of economic policy uncertainty from non-U.S. countries for U.S. stock market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    23. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    24. John Geweke, 1999. "Using simulation methods for bayesian econometric models: inference, development,and communication," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 1-73.
    25. Jian Chen & Fuwei Jiang & Guoshi Tong, 2017. "Economic policy uncertainty in China and stock market expected returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(5), pages 1265-1286, December.
    26. Liu, Peipei & Huang, Wei-Qiang, 2024. "Spatial analysis of sovereign risk from the perspective of EPU spillovers," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 427-443.
    27. Lin, Boqiang & Shi, Fengyuan, 2024. "Coal price, economic growth and electricity consumption in China under the background of energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    28. Liu, Zhenhua & Chen, Shumin & Zhong, Hongyu & Ding, Zhihua, 2024. "Coal price shocks, investor sentiment, and stock market returns," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    29. Qiao, Sen & Dang, Yi Jing & Ren, Zheng Yu & Zhang, Kai Quan, 2023. "The dynamic spillovers among carbon, fossil energy and electricity markets based on a TVP-VAR-SV method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    30. Jiang, Yonghong & Zhu, Zixuan & Tian, Gengyu & Nie, He, 2019. "Determinants of within and cross-country economic policy uncertainty spillovers: Evidence from US and China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    31. Meng Yan & Kai Shi, 2021. "The impact of high-frequency economic policy uncertainty on China’s macroeconomy: evidence from mixed-frequency VAR," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 3201-3224, January.
    32. Junchao Li & Shan Huang, 2021. "The dynamic relationship between economic policy uncertainty and substantial economic growth in China," Marine Economics and Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 4(2), pages 113-134, June.
    33. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Nakajima Jouchi, 2011. "Monetary Policy Transmission under Zero Interest Rates: An Extended Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression Approach," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-24, October.
    35. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    36. Hu, Debao & Lu, Jingming & Zhao, Sibo, 2024. "Does trade policy uncertainty increase commercial banks’ risk-taking? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 532-551.
    37. Sun, Guanglin & Fang, Jiming & Li, Ting & Ai, Yongfang, 2024. "Effects of climate policy uncertainty on green innovation in Chinese enterprises," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    38. Zhu, Xuehong & Liao, Jianhui & Chen, Ying, 2021. "Time-varying effects of oil price shocks and economic policy uncertainty on the nonferrous metals industry: From the perspective of industrial security," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    39. Cheng, Feiyang & Wang, Chunfeng & Cui, Xin & Wu, Ji & He, Feng, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty exposure and stock price bubbles: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    40. He, Feng & Ma, Yaming & Zhang, Xiaojie, 2020. "How does economic policy uncertainty affect corporate Innovation?–Evidence from China listed companies," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 225-239.
    41. Siddiki, Jalal & Singh, Prakash, 2025. "The cost of uncertainty: Analysing the influence of coal price changes, the Russia-Ukraine war and geopolitical risk on risk premiums in the Indian electricity spot market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    42. Si, Deng-Kui & Zhao, Bing & Li, Xiao-Lin & Ding, Hui, 2021. "Policy uncertainty and sectoral stock market volatility in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 557-573.
    43. Yang, Xite & Zhang, Qin & Liu, Haiyue & Liu, Zihan & Tao, Qiufan & Lai, Yongzeng & Huang, Linya, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty, macroeconomic shocks, and systemic risk: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    44. Liu, Feng & Shao, Shuai & Li, Xin & Pan, Na & Qi, Yu, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty, jump dynamics, and oil price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    45. Ren, Xiaohang & Li, Jingyao & He, Feng & Lucey, Brian, 2023. "Impact of climate policy uncertainty on traditional energy and green markets: Evidence from time-varying granger tests," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    46. Xin Cui & Shouyu Yao & Zhenming Fang & Hua Wang, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty exposure and earnings management: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(3), pages 3937-3976, September.
    47. Kahle, Kathleen M. & Stulz, René M., 2013. "Access to capital, investment, and the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 280-299.
    48. Li, Zheng-Zheng & Su, Chi-Wei & Chang, Tsangyao & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona, 2022. "Policy-driven or market-driven? Evidence from steam coal price bubbles in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    49. Mo, Bin & Zeng, Haiyu & Meng, Juan & Ding, Shaokai, 2024. "The connectedness between uncertainty and exchange rates of oil import countries: new evidence from time and frequency perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    50. Youshu Li & Junjie Guo, 2022. "The asymmetric impacts of oil price and shocks on inflation in BRICS: a multiple threshold nonlinear ARDL model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(12), pages 1377-1395, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huanyu Ma & Xuegang Sun, 2025. "The impact of economic policy uncertainty on earnings value relevance," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 2427-2449, July.
    2. Ma, Tingting & Niu, Duo & Fang, Xizhe & Ji, Xinyuan & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2025. "Cautious and conscientious or fish in troubled waters: Knightian uncertainty and financial restatement," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Qian, Binsheng & Tan, Yusen & Power, Gabriel & Mandal, Anandadeep, 2025. "Economic policy uncertainty, information production, and transparency," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Chada, Swechha, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainties and institutional ownership in India," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    5. Wang, Jie & Hu, Jiukai & Yu, Bo, 2025. "Risk spillover effects among Chinese policy, economy and financial markets: Evidence from mixed-frequency data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 2263-2277.
    6. Li, Mingyan & Tang, Xuepeng & Yu, Linhui, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and the demand for labor: Evidence from the online job postings of Chinese firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    7. Yingce Yang & Junjie Guo & Ruihong He, 2023. "The Asymmetric Impact of the Oil Price and Disaggregate Shocks on Economic Policy Uncertainty: Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, June.
    8. Song, Lu & Tian, Gengyu & Jiang, Yonghong, 2022. "Connectedness of commodity, exchange rate and categorical economic policy uncertainties — Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Ma, Yong & Wang, Mengyuan, 2024. "Monetary policy shock and corporate innovation: Evidence from China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(3).
    10. Hu, Lifang, 2025. "Maturity mismatch and disinvestment as transmission mechanisms: Linking economic policy uncertainty to firm performance," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(PB).
    11. Xiao, Jihong & Jiang, Jiajie & Zhang, Yaojie, 2024. "Policy uncertainty, investor sentiment, and good and bad volatilities in the stock market: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Yu, Jian & Shi, Xunpeng & Guo, Dongmei & Yang, Longjian, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm carbon emissions: Evidence using a China provincial EPU index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    13. Lin, Boqiang & Lan, Tianxu, 2025. "Energy price uncertainty and sectoral tail risk: Evidence from quantile-on-quantile connectedness," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    14. Li, Xiao-Xin & Xie, Chi & Wang, Gang-Jin & Zhu, You & Li, Zhao-Chen & Zhang, Zhi-Yu, 2025. "Enhancing stock market return predictability by using a novel autoencoder-based aggregate EPU index," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    15. Suyi Zheng & Jiandong Wen, 2023. "How Does Firm-Level Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect Corporate Innovation? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-23, April.
    16. Xuan Yang & Shihao Mao & Luxuan Sun & Chao Feng & Yinshuang Xia, 2022. "The Effect of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from China’s Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    17. Sun, Yunpeng & Erzurumlu, Yaman Omer & Gozgor, Giray, 2025. "Economic uncertainty and innovation capability: Corruption as a barrier to innovation output," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Zhang, Jiahao & Zhang, Yifeng & Wei, Yu & Wang, Zhuo, 2024. "Normal and extreme impact and connectedness between fossil energy futures markets and uncertainties: Does El Niño-Southern Oscillation matter?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 188-215.
    19. Wan, Enze & Li, Zhezhou & Zhao, Liang & Zhang, Xiangjian, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and Chinese companies' overseas investment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    20. Shabir, Mohsin & Jiang, Ping & Bakhsh, Satar & Zhao, Zhongxiu, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and bank stability: Threshold effect of institutional quality and competition," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:332:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225028403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.