Document Type
Research Brief
Date
7-23-2026
Disciplines
Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
Description/Abstract
Public policy researchers have long been interested in measuring and understanding policy change, but have lacked an effective means to examine these changes rigorously and at scale across many policy documents. This paper develops an approach to measure changes in policy text across three dimensions — depth (the extent of change, on average, across policy statements), width (how these changes are distributed across the policy), and (a)symmetry (the asymmetry of depth and width across added and terminated text). The approach leverages computational textual analysis and text reuse methods to identify text added, deleted, or retained across two versions of a policy statement, enabling researchers to assess a large volume of policy documents at scale. It helps distinguish between policy patching (adding new language without altering existing policy designs — asymmetric change) and policy packaging (replacing old language with new language — symmetric change). The authors test and validate the approach using state policy statements on net metering.
Recommended Citation
Ambrose, Graham and Gregoire-Zawilski, Myriam, "Mapping Measurement to Theory in Policy Evolution: A Case of Net Metering Policies of the United States" (2026). Research to Practice Briefs. 1.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpdg_briefseries/1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
