The Economic Waste of Christmas Giving? Bah, Humbug!

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PBS Newshour:

Those Christmas gifts you're madly wrapping right now -- are they all an economic waste? What if your aunt hates the $40 sweater and would have preferred cash so she could buy something she actually values at $40? We examined the "deadweight loss of Christmas" in our Making Sense segment above and on the Business Desk with the University of Minnesota economist who coined the theory, Joel Waldfogel.

 

But don't scavenge for the gift receipt just yet. Many economists don't agree with Waldfogel's brand of scroogenomics, according to a recent University of Chicago Initiative on Global Markets survey. Even more interesting, the survey asked these prominent economists to explain why they agreed or disagreed (and to what degree). Dismal scientists, it turns out, are so sentimental about the non-monetary value of gift-giving that The Atlantic turned their responses into Christmas cards.

 

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Interesting Read. Comics at bottom.