inflation_history#

  • Series: lecture-python-intro

  • File: lectures/inflation_history.md

  • Audit date: 2026-08-26

  • Corpus snapshot: a12d17c0ef

  • Categories audited: writing, math, code, figures, references, links, admonitions (JAX out of scope)

  • Overall score: 7.4 / 10

  • Priority: HIGH

Score breakdown#

Category

Score

One-line note

Writing

3/10

qe-writing-001 ×5; qe-writing-002 ×7; qe-writing-004 ×2, +3 more.

Math

10/10

no mechanical violations detected.

Code

6/10

qe-code-001 ×8; qe-code-003 ×2.

JAX

out of scope

JAX rules target lecture-jax.

Figures

4.5/10

qe-fig-006 ×9; qe-fig-004 ×9; qe-fig-005 ×4, +1 more.

References

8.5/10

qe-ref-001 ×4.

Links

10/10

no mechanical violations detected.

Admonitions

10/10

no mechanical violations detected.

Issues#

Critical#

None found.

High severity#

  • [qe-code-001] (reviewer) — Follow PEP8 unless closer to mathematical notation. Count: 8. Lines: 238, 271, 280, 284, 721, 724, 728, 789. Example: if type(entry) == str instead of isinstance(entry, str) (238); backslash line-continuations where the enclosing parentheses already allow implicit continuation (271, 280, 284); and alignment padding that PEP8 rules out - extra spaces after the dict colons at 721 and 789 and two spaces before = at 724 and 728.

  • [qe-fig-004] — Caption formatting conventions. Count: 9. Lines: 98, 174, 412, 432, 460, 480, 506, 549, 591. Example: caption of 8 words.

  • [qe-fig-006] — Lowercase axis labels. Count: 9. Lines: 117, 118, 189, 323, 324, 339, 743, 817, 894. Example: axis label Index  1913 = 100.

  • [qe-writing-001] — Use one sentence per paragraph. Count: 5. Lines: 79, 227, 502, 661, 765. Example: 2 sentences in one paragraph.

  • [qe-writing-002] (reviewer) — Keep writing clear, concise, and valuable. Count: 7. Lines: 76, 162, 164, 207, 401, 666, 932. Example: seven sentences of 34-57 words, each carrying two or more ideas: 76 (39w, definition of hard currency plus the mechanics of coin valuation), 162 (35w), 164 (39w, announces a figure, names the historical turning point and cites the source in one breath), 207 (42w), 401 (34w), 666 (57w, four countries’ stabilisation ratios in a single sentence - a table would carry this better), 932 (37w).

  • [qe-writing-008] — Remove excessive whitespace between words. Count: 6. Lines: 76, 153, 502, 668, 765. Example: 2 spaces.

Medium severity#

  • [qe-code-003] — Package installation at lecture top. Count: 2. Lines: 22, 30. Example: non-Anaconda import with no install cell: [‘packaging’].

  • [qe-fig-001] — Do not set figure size unless necessary. Count: 4. Lines: 110, 810, 890, 910. Example: figsize=.

  • [qe-fig-005] — Descriptive figure names for cross-referencing. Count: 4. Lines: 538, 701, 786, 871. Example: code-cell figure without mystnb figure metadata.

  • [qe-ref-001] — Use correct citation style. Count: 4. Lines: 69, 646, 668, 672. Example: {cite} in narrative flow: ‘of {cite}’.

  • [qe-writing-003] (reviewer) — Maintain logical flow. Count: 2. Lines: 164, 454. Example: 164-174 announces {numref}`lrpl_lg`, then describes what it shows (166), then interrupts with a note about logarithms (168) and an unrelated sentence about 1914 (172) before the figure finally appears at 174; and line 452 promises “We’ll see similar patterns in the next three episodes that we’ll study now”, but the Hungary, Poland and Germany sections (454-630) contain six figures and not one sentence of interpretation - the reader gets no commentary again until 632.

  • [qe-writing-004] — Avoid unnecessary capitalization in narrative text. Count: 2. Lines: 502. Example: mid-sentence ‘Price’.

Low severity#

  • [qe-writing-005] (reviewer) — Use bold for definitions, italic for emphasis. Count: 1. Lines: 153. Example: “issuing limited supplies of paper currency” - bold used for emphasis inside a bullet, where the rule reserves bold for definitions and italic for emphasis; contrast line 49, where inflation is correctly bolded as a definition.

Strengths#

  • The two plotting helpers pe_plot and pr_plot (297-351) are defined once and reused across all four country sections, so the eight country figures are guaranteed to share axes, log scaling and date formatting.

  • Every figure that has a caption also has a name, and the prose actually cites them with {numref} (126, 166, 197, 446).

  • Data provenance is unusually careful: each country section names the source table and page from {cite}`sargent2013rational`, and the note at 501 documents exactly how the three Polish price series were spliced.

  • {note} and {tip} admonitions are used well to park side material (the warehouse-certificate aside at 78, the treasury-bill aside at 660, the PPP pointer at 640) instead of interrupting the narrative.

  • The three exercises added at 678-937 are genuine quantitative follow-ups on the lecture’s own claims, each with a gated dropdown solution that re-uses the lecture’s dataframes.