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birdwatcherBloomberg Top News -- “The way we celebrate Christmas around the developed world is with an orgy of value destruction that vaporizes $25 billion per year,” Joel Waldfogel, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “People value the items they receive as gifts 20 percent less per dollar spent than the items they purchase for themselves. These are items that are not well-suited for their tastes.”
One obvious way to remove the waste from gift-giving would be to give cash, since that would provide recipients freedom to buy exactly what they want, Waldfogel said. That’s not really possible since social conventions often frown upon using money as a present.
One obvious way to remove the waste from gift-giving would be to give cash, since that would provide recipients freedom to buy exactly what they want, Waldfogel said. That’s not really possible since social conventions often frown upon using money as a present.
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