February 1, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Export prices decline again in 1998

Export prices fell 3.5 percent in 1998. The decline was more than double the declines of 1.1 percent and 1.2 percent recorded in 1997 and 1996, respectively, and was the largest recorded for the export price index since publication of the series began in 1984.

December-to-december change in price index for all merchandise exports, 1989-98
[Chart data—TXT]

Agricultural export prices fell 9.3 percent for the year ended in December 1998 and have decreased on an annual basis in each of the last three years.  Prices for nonagricultural exports were down 2.8 percent for the year ended in December, following a 1.0-percent decrease in the prior year.

Estimates of export prices and other international price indexes are produced by the BLS International Price Index program.  Additional information may be found in news release USDL 99-13, "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes—December 1998."

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED