Surging Prices Changing U.S. Consumer Behavior; Eight in 10 Americans have made more of an effort to find the cheapest prices for products.
Byline: Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist Synopsis: A new Gallup Poll shows that nearly half of Americans say the most important financial problem facing their families today is surging prices, with 29% pointing to energy and gas prices, and 18% simply saying the high cost of living and...

Food Supersedes Healthcare as Consumer Price Issue; In response to higher food, gas prices, 50% report their "fun" money is down over the past year.
Byline: Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist Synopsis: Fifty-one percent of U.S. consumers say food prices have increased "a lot" over the past year, up from 28% two years ago, while 24% say the same about healthcare and prescription drugs, down from 34% in 2006. PRINCETON, NJ...

Calibrating passthrough of exchange rate to consumer prices.
Byline: Jaideep Mishra NEW DELHI: Go with the flow, goes the proverbial advice. Every flow has its ebb, it is also duly remarked. The symbolism would not be entirely unrelated to the policy domain. Take, for instance, buoyant capital inflows. Of monies from abroad buying into domestic...

Economic stimulus package welcome, but will be little felt.
Byline: Hans G. Despain COLUMN: As I see it One year ago today I predicated in the Telegram & Gazette the looming recession would not turn the fundamentals of the economy decisively negative. My logic was based on the miraculous willingness of an anti-intervention Bush...

P/$ rate closes at P47.16/$ 1.
The peso exchange rate closed higher at P47.16 to the US dollar yesterday, the first trading day of 2009, at the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. (PDEx) from P47.52, last December 24, 2008. The weighted average rate appreciated to P47.264 from P47.647 Total volume amounted to $ 486.5 million....

IRRI urges developing countries to include rice sector needs in infra plans.
Developing countries like the Philippines need to intensify investments in infrastructure like farm-to-market roads and irrigation in order to sustain productivity amid foreseen reducing volume of globally traded rice. A nine-point solution to a probable reduction in global rice productivity set by the International Rice Research Institute...

Surprise: Australian consumer prices fall.
Gasoline prices in Australia are down 12.4 percent. Fruit prices fell 5.2 percent (it is summer in Australia) and pharmaceutical prices were down 5.0 percent. The consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent. And this was the first time in eight years that Australian consumer prices registered lower. The decline...

Prices becoming royal pain for king consumer.
NEW DELHI: The all-India consumer price index for urban non-manual employees, CPI (UNME), rose 7.8% in February 2007 compared to the same month last year, the highest growth this financial year. The index measures the average change in the consumer prices of food, beverages, tobacco, fuel, housing,...

Fees on OFW remittances to be reviewed - Palace.
Deputy Presidential Spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said government economic managers would have to fully study the proposal by Migrante International aimed at helping OFW families cope with rising consumer prices. "We have to consult our economic managers regarding the desire of Migrante. That could be studied," Fajardo said,...

Inflation rate slows down to 9.9 %.
Declining prices of consumer goods and the price rollback of petroleum products have slowed down the country s inflation rate to 9.9 percent in November from 11.2 percent in October. The National Statistics Office (NSO) has also attributed it to the continued deceleration in the annual rates...