What the study found
The study found a shift in how people talked about price hikes in Japan. After 2021, tweets were more likely to accept higher prices, although many posts still showed anger.
Why the authors say this matters
The authors suggest this shift may reflect a change in the social norm that had treated price increases as something people strongly opposed. They also connect the change to inflationary shocks after COVID-19 and the Ukraine war.
What the researchers tested
The researchers used a natural language processing method, which is a computer-based way of analyzing text, on tweets that commented on price hikes in Japan. They examined how the tone of these tweets changed over time.
What worked and what didn't
The analysis found more posts expressing anger overall, but also an increase in posts after 2021 that accepted price hikes for different goods. Some of these posts even expressed positive feelings and mentioned salary hikes.
What to keep in mind
The abstract does not describe detailed limitations of the study. The findings are based on tweets about price hikes, so the summary here is limited to that text source and the time period discussed.
Key points
- Japanese inflation expectations had been described as very low during the chronic deflation era starting in the 1990s.
- The study found a rise after 2021 in tweets that accepted price hikes for various goods.
- More posts still revealed anger, even as acceptance increased.
- Some tweets included positive feelings and mentioned salary hikes.
- The researchers used natural language processing to analyze tweets about price hikes.
Disclosure
- Research title:
- Japanese tweets show more acceptance of price hikes after 2021
- Authors:
- Toshitaka Sekine, Tetsuro Wada
- Institutions:
- Hitotsubashi University, National Tax College
- Publication date:
- 2026-03-09
- OpenAlex record:
- View
- Image credit:
- TheMasterMind321, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
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