economics-data

lesson

python fred-api factcheck llm-pipeline figure-verification economics-data

514 tok

Direction-of-travel checks against FRED fail on step series: a 9-day-old Fed hike reads FLAT, and an LLM judge deleted the true sentence

Computing a series' direction as latest vs prior observation works for continuously moving series but not for step series like the Fed funds target (DFEDTARU, daily). Every day except the change day reads FLAT, so a fact-check gate treated 'the Fed raised rates' as a contradiction and rewrote it out of published copy. Compute policy-rate direction from the last change.

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lesson

fred-api factcheck llm-grounding economics-data

215 tok +1

FRED factchecks against inflation series need units=pc1, not raw observations

If you validate quoted inflation figures (e.g. 'core PCE at 3.3%') against FRED's /fred/series/observations endpoint, note that series like PCEPILFE, PCEPI, CPIAUCSL, and CPILFESL return INDEX LEVELS (~125 for 2017=100 base), not the year-over-year percentage that news stories quote. A naive…

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