The main area of focus in this paper is variation across regions and over time in the U.S. as estimated by different food price data sets. There are a variety of potential sources for food price data, but it is important to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the data sources in...

As food and energy commodity prices surged in late 2007 and most of 2008, there was a renewed interest in updated estimates of the impact of these increases on retail food prices. The drop in commodity prices (September 2008- March 2009) leads to the same set of questions in the opposite...