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More and more people are sending money from places like the United States to places like the Dominican Republic, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center.

Last month, my blogmate Kat Chow wrote about a New Jersey lottery winner named Pedro Quezada who sent a staggering $57 million of his winnings back to the Dominican Republic, where his family lives. Let's ignore the sheer dollar amount for a second to look at the larger global trend that Quezada represents: the growing amount of money flowing from high-income nations to what the World Bank classifies as "middle-income" nations.

Seventy percent of all "remittances" — the money that migrants send back to their countries of origin — goes to middle-income nations like the Dominican Republic, India and Mexico, according to a newly released Pew study that crunched numbers from the World Bank. (The World Bank classifies countries as middle-income if their per capita annual incomes fall between $1,036 and $12,615.) There are a few reasons for this: there are more middle-income nations in the world than before; those nations have more people in them; and more of those people are migrating to wealthier places.

Those immigrants are also heading to new destinations. In 1990, nations like Ukraine and India were among the countries with the world's largest immigrant populations. But they're not in the top 10 today, having been supplanted by places like the United Arab Emirates and Australia. (The United States had a far larger immigrant population than any country in the world, both then and now.)

Just how far does a dollar go? We'll try to answer that question as part of an occasional series on what things cost around the world. In this installment, NPR's Julie McCarthy takes us on a gastronomic tour of New Delhi and tells us what you can buy for $5, $20 and $100.

With over a billion people, India's $1.7 trillion economy is as varied as its culture. But if you still think of it as a land of endless bargains, then you'd better think again.

The currency in Asia's third-largest economy took a nosedive this year, and the rising inflation that followed is taking a bite out of Indian wallets: Everything from fuel to clothing to food is getting costlier.

Outdoor street markets are the most economical way to shop in India. Like Europeans, Indians usually shop several times a week, but their purchasing power is dwindling: Wholesale vegetable prices have risen 18 percent from a year ago.

Still, there are lots of interesting options, no matter your budget. Here's a sampling:

What you can get for $5 or less

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In a year that featured divisive fights over the budget, health care and presidential nominations, the United States Senate took a break from partisan bickering Tuesday night to get in the Christmas spirit.

A total of 65 senators — 42 Democrats and 23 Republicans — took part in a gift exchange after the day's final votes were tallied. As NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith reported Wednesday on Morning Edition, Secret Santa is taking shape as something of a tradition in the upper chamber, as this is the third year in a row the event has taken place.

Here are some of the stocking stuffers that were swapped this year:

Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who organized this year's Secret Santa event, came in well below the $15 limit for his gift. He personally made a map of the United States — which he can draw from memory — for Sen. Joe Donnelly, noting important moments in the Indiana Democrat's life.

Talk about a fall:

"Prices of virtual currency bitcoin fell 20% Wednesday and are now down more than 50% from their record high hit two weeks ago amid worries that China is moving to block the purchase and use of the currency by its citizens," The Wall Street Journal writes.

Bitcoin's big slide began two weeks ago, as we reported, when Chinese authorities told banks there that they couldn't trade in the currency. Officials were worried, NPR's Frank Langfitt reported, about a lack of control over bitcoins that "makes it easier to launder money and finance terrorism."

Wednesday, MarketWatch writes, "BTC China, the biggest bitcoin exchange in that country," announced it has "temporarily stopped" accepting yuan deposits into bitcoin accounts. The news followed reports that "the People's Bank of China had a meeting on Monday with about 10 major third-party payment processors and ordered them to stop working with bitcoin exchanges."

The result: "On Wednesday, bitcoin prices fell another 20 percent to $550.02, down more than 50% from its high of $1,147.25 two weeks ago," the Journal says.

And according to MarketWatch, "some in the Twittersphere [are] reading the last rites for the virtual currency that has captured the world's attention."

At Slate, economics correspondent Matthew Yglesias writes about why so many Chinese have been eager to use bitcoin: "The ability of Yuan-rich savers to turn their money into dollars or other foreign currency is sharply circumscribed. ... By using a Bitcoin exchange as an intermediary, a Chinese person could sell Yuan and a non-Chinese person could buy them."

But, he concludes, "as of this morning it looks like party is over."