A common theme that we have been hearing of late is that response rates have been dropping off. The first and most important question that we ask when we hear this is whether or not the mailer is doing some sort of match back to allocate purchases across all pertinent channels.  A high percentage of mailers are doing match back now, which was not true a few years ago, and this has allowed mailers to see the true value of the outside names they are bringing in with their catalogs. Since we hear that response rates are declining in the industry, it often akes me scratch my head in wonder when I get the notices that a file has increased its rental fees. My first question is: have the managers found a way to increase the response rate? Otherwise paying more money for names that are responding less doesn't make sense.  The fact that the highest price that any of the six co-operative databases is charging $70/M, paying on average $150/M for a list, make