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24 June 2022
Turning Japanese
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Japan came #1, in our recent clients wish list survey - for good reasons.
It has taken us some time to crack those language models, but we are very nearly done now.
This week, we are proud to report on a first milestone, and on more to come very soon.
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Japanese language news are in the Inflation NewsBot
Given what we have seen in the data and knowing the current focus on Japan inflation, we have decided to anticipate the planned release.
Starting Wednesday, we have included Japanese in the NewsBot. It is a beta release, with a handful of models still in final fine-tuning stage.
The Real-time Inflation NewsBot app has also been updated. The app allows queries for up to 8 days and its content is refreshed throughout the day.
Japanese is our 7th language (the others are Chinese, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish).
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What does the NewsBot see in Japanese news?
It is striking how many of those items look familiar.
To take just a couple of examples:
- an ongoing energy price shock, with forthcoming electricity and gas bills hikes in August (original, translated);
- some broad-based foodstore price increases, for instance this drink producer (original, translated);
We have counted at least 8 different articles mentioning different food price rises coming up in September or October since Monday 20th of June.
Of course, some historical perspective is needed and that's exactly what the NIPI will be there for.
But it does look like many goods exposed to the yen depreciation and global food and energy price surges will experience price resets in a few months. After all, it would not be entirely surprising if those price adjustements come in particularly delayed versus the original shocks and, therefore, experience compatively big jumps, after decades of deflation. To be confirmed by the data.
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Japan NIPI to follow
We calculate and release the NIPI series for a new language only once all models are 100% settled. We need robust models because we do not revise NIPI series.
Our first language models, in English, have been live for 2 years now, without any revisions, even though the training sets are mostly pre-COVID. By the way, we are still using the same, mostly pre-COVID, datasets and sample period to train new languages, including Japanese now.
Our current expectation is for the Japan NIPI to be released in the course of July, which we will confirm within a couple of weeks.
Existing NIPI series won't be affected by the addition of new languages.
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Beyond Japan
Swedish came second in our clients survey and we are running the analysis to have it as our 8th language.
Once done, we will be looking at CEE, with Czech and Polish, most likely closer to the end of the year.
It's not too late to make suggestions, so feel free to drop us a line.
Finally, if you have questions or want to try the data, don't hesitate to hit the "Reach out" button below.
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Earlier posts
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Newsletter: NIPI-CPI look back, New NewsBot - NIPI feature pages, ... 11/5/2022. Available here.
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Newsletter: Inflation forecast bias and how to remedy it with alternative text data. 18/03/2022. Available here.
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Newsletter: China NIPI First release! 09/02/2022. Available here.
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Newsletter: EM Inflation, US CPI Look-back, NIPI App Feature Update, 21/12/2021. Available here.
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Newsletter: No Base Effects Here, NIPI bounded, 1/12/2021. Available here.
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Blog Post: "The NIPI as a predictor of US inflation: Nov-2021 update", 10/11/2021. Available here.
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