Method

How a figure gets here

Everything on this platform is free, which means there is no price to signal quality. What is left is the method. If you cannot check how a figure got here, you are being asked to trust us — and there is no reason you should.

So the method is published alongside the findings, not filed behind them. It is the argument, not the appendix.

What counts as a source

Primary means first-hand. A source is primary when it holds the data itself, not when it is respectable. The Bank of Japan is primary on the money supply. A broker is primary on its own transactions. A newspaper reporting either one is not primary on anything — it is a pointer to where the number lives.

The hierarchy has three levels and the third is a prohibition. An official consolidated source is the ideal: the FSA, the GIAJ, the LIAJ, the BOJ. Where no official consolidation exists, we use an attributed non-official source and say so plainly — a figure that has no official seal is not the same as a figure with no origin, and flattening the two would mean publishing less than we honestly can. What we do not do is take a number from a source that is citing someone else, or from a figure whose trail runs out. If we cannot follow it back to the body that produced it, it does not go up.

Verification means the original document, not the total. A figure is checked against the release it came from, line by line. Reconciling to a published total is not the same thing — an aggregate can balance with compensating errors inside it, and we have found exactly that in our own working files. Units get checked separately, because Japanese sources move between 百万円, 十億円 and 兆円 across tables in the same document, and a mislabelled unit is a factor-of-a-thousand error that no total will catch.

When sources disagree or revise, we say so. Official figures get revised; two bodies measuring similar things with different methods produce different numbers, and neither is wrong. Where that happens, we publish the discrepancy rather than picking a winner quietly, and we name the methodology that separates them. A revision is dated, not overwritten.

What travels with every figure: its origin, its date, and its revision state. Enough to take any number here, go to the body that issued it, and find the same number. That is the standard. Where a figure cannot meet it, it does not appear — and where a whole measure cannot be built from primary sources, we say that too, instead of estimating our way around the gap.

Credit where credit’s due: This project would not have been possible without my AI assistant.

The sources

What is on this list. Two kinds of source, kept separate on purpose.

Official primary — the bodies that produce and consolidate the data themselves: the central bank, the ministries, the regulator, the industry associations, the disclosure systems. This is where published figures come from.

Attributed primary — organisations that are first-hand on their own data but do not carry an official seal: research institutes, survey firms, market bodies. We use them where no official consolidation exists, and we name them in the text every time. A figure from this group always arrives with its origin attached, because the reader needs to know what is in their hand.

There is a third category we read and do not list: catalogues, archives, and press databases that tell us a figure exists. We go to the issuing body for the number itself. Listing them here would suggest they are sources of data, and they are not.

How it is ordered. By domain, not by importance — insurance, banking, corporate filings, markets, macro, demographics, and the international series that let Japanese figures be compared against something. Within each, official primary first.

The list grows as the platform does. It is a record of what we actually read, not a statement of ambition, and a source appears here once it has been used.

Official primary Attributed primary

Insurance

  • FSA金融庁Supervisory statistics for regulated insurers.
  • LIAJ生命保険協会Life insurance industry aggregates.
  • GIAJ日本損害保険協会Non-life aggregates, by line and by company.
  • GIROJ損害保険料率算出機構Statutory rating organisation: reference rates, standard rates, and unified member statistics in CSV.
  • Japan Earthquake Reinsurance日本地震再保険Sole reinsurer of household earthquake cover: scheme structure and claims paid by event since 1966.
  • Institute of Actuaries of Japan日本アクチュアリー会The standard mortality table the FSA adopts for reserves and premiums.
  • JILI生命保険文化センターHousehold surveys on life insurance demand.

Banking

Corporate filings and capital markets

  • EDINETStatutory disclosure for listed companies, in XBRL.
  • J-Quants APIHistorical prices and corporate financials from JPX.
  • JPX Data CatalogIndices, volumes, and derivatives.

Real estate

Public debt and fixed income

  • MOF財務省Annual debt management report on Japanese government bonds.
  • JSDA日本証券業協会Over-the-counter prices, volumes, and yields for some 5,600 bonds.

Macro

Demographics

Cross-cutting statistics

  • e-StatThe unified government portal: statistics from every ministry, with a download API.
  • Statistics Bureau総務省統計局The Statistical Yearbook, running from 1873.

Funds and pensions

  • GPIF年金積立金管理運用独立行政法人The largest public pension fund in the world.
  • IMAJ資産運用業協会Assets under management, flows, and monthly fund statistics.

Other sectors

International

Research institutes

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