Professor Waldfogel: The Deadweight Loss of Christmas
You will not be receiving Christmas presents from me this year. Instead I am sending you a copy of the American Economic Review f...
Waldfogel’s unwanted gift
Can conventional economic theory be extended to understanding Christmas gifts? Maybe it can, but this would require a more subtle understanding of human behavour than the idea of rational economic man. This article shows that we do not simply value gifts in terms of the cost of the purchase.