Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word economists. 4 news.

SINGAPORE'S exports unexpectedly dropped for the first time in six months in November as shipments by electronics companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers slumped. Non-oil domestic exports sank 3.4 percent from a year earlier following a revised 6.5 percent gain in October, the government's trade promotion agency said. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists was for a 4.5-percent increase. Singapore's electronic shipments have declined each month since February as a global inventory glut caused prices for memory chips and microprocessors to fall. "We don't see a lot of impetus for an early recovery in electronics, especially given the uncertainty over the outlook for the global economy," said Ho Woei Chen, an analyst at United Overseas Bank Ltd in Singapore. "The volatility in exports and production in the pharmaceutical sector remains." Exports dropped a seasonally adjusted six percent last month from October, when they fell a

Energy pleas ignore an important bit of economics ENERGY efficiency is probably the most popular environmental panacea. While politicians discuss complicated global climate-change deals, economists tinker with intricate emissions-trading schemes and engineers design a new generation of nuclear-power plants, many greens advocate simpler steps: buying more efficient cars, replacing wasteful incandescent bulbs with efficient fluorescent ones and installing proper insulation. The International Energy Agency reckons that more efficient manufacturing, cosier houses and frugal transport could reduce energy demand worldwide by a third by 2050. With that in mind, governments are prodding businesses to make their products more efficient. A voluntary agreement between the European Union and big carmakers has helped boost fuel economy 12% above its 1995 level, although the target of 25% by 2009 will not be met. ...

Some reasons why the U.S. economy might avoid a recession, despite all the gloom on Wall Street.

Official sector monetary economists, particularly the Federal Reserve's, just can't bring themselves to admit that their models are broken, writes John Dizard