{"id":33694,"date":"2026-09-22T10:50:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=33694"},"modified":"2026-09-22T11:07:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:07:54","slug":"perception-matters-evidence-from-cross-language-media-on-the-chinese-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2026\/09\/22\/perception-matters-evidence-from-cross-language-media-on-the-chinese-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Perception Matters: Evidence from Cross-Language Media on the Chinese Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment33696\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment33696\" style=\"width: 712px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-636x424.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"468\" class=\" wp-image-33696\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-636x424.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/grigorii-shcheglov-xk_kbBWgr4A-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment33696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">United States. Photo by Grigorii Shcheglov via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/GCI-WP-54-CEMSI.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new working paper<\/a><\/strong><\/em> from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center developed new cross-language sentiment indices capable of measuring and comparing how English- and Chinese-language media portray China\u2019s economy over time. The research revealed a persistent perception gap between English and Chinese media sentiment toward China\u2019s economy, with distinct links to market prices and monetary policy.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers analyzed more than 1.2 million news articles published between 2002 and 2020 in both English and Chinese, classifying tone at scale across both languages.<\/p>\n<h5>Main findings:<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Economic perceptions differ systematically across English- and Chinese-language media, with distinct relationships to market prices and monetary policy.<\/li>\n<li>Over the course of 18 years of coverage, Chinese-language media were consistently more positive about China\u2019s economy compared to English-language media. This \u201cperception gap\u201d has widened over time and remains persistent.<\/li>\n<li>But the two sentiment signals are associated differently with markets and policy.<\/li>\n<li>When the two measures are considered jointly, equity and commodity prices respond primarily to English-language sentiment.<\/li>\n<li>The picture is different for monetary policy: policy variables respond to sentiment changes across both languages, with substantially stronger responses when English- and Chinese-language sentiment move together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2026\/09\/GCI-WP-54-CEMSI.pdf\" class=\"button\">Read the Working Paper<\/a>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp-cn\/2026\/09\/22\/perception-matters-evidence-from-cross-language-media-on-the-chinese-economy\/\" class=\"button\">\u9605\u8bfb\u4e2d\u6587\u7248<\/a>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2026\/09\/22\/is-perception-reality-evidence-from-cross-language-media-sentiments-on-the-chinese-economy\/\" class=\"button\">Read the Blog<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new working paper from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center developed new cross-language sentiment indices capable of measuring and comparing how English- and Chinese-language media portray China\u2019s economy over time. The research revealed a persistent perception gap between English and Chinese media sentiment toward China\u2019s economy, with distinct links to market prices and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25029,"featured_media":33696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1149,156,72,105,104],"tags":[4924,4494,641,429,4496,711,5054,5053],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33694"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33708,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33694\/revisions\/33708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}