The Beauty of Exchanging Gifts
Commentary
Some years ago, some economists came up with an idea that became briefly fashionable. The idea is that gift-giving is inefficient. That’s because it is unlikely that the gift given to the recipient would have been as high up on his utility scale as some other item that could have been purchased for the same amount of money. Therefore, resources are being wasted, and you are thus far better off giving money than objects.
Maybe, and it is true that as kids get older they tend to get money rather than gifts from parents. But still, it’s kind of tacky to slip a friend two ‘twenties’ and say Merry Christmas. Indeed, if that happened to you, you might think it was pretty weird or lazy. On the other hand, if he gave you a fancy cutting board or a nice bottle of brandy, you would be happy even if you were not in need of either….