Japan’s service prices rose at the fastest clip in over 30 years in a sign of a broadening inflation trend that supports the case for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates. The services producer price index, a measure of the cost of a range of goods and services provided by businesses to other firms and government entities, jumped 2.8% from a year earlier, the BOJ reported Tuesday. That marks the fastest pace of growth since September 1991, excluding periods affected by sales tax increases. The reading came in hotter than the 2.3% forecast by economists. The BOJ has highlighted service prices as a key measure of ... (full story)