Audio: Why Economists Hate Gifts
Originally published on Tue May 22, 2012 10:14 am
Giving and receiving gifts can be a joyful thing — unless you're an economist. All those books that will never be read and ties that will never be worn are hugely inefficient.
To investigate a possible solution, we went to a seventh-grade classroom at a public school in Brooklyn.
The students were already familiar with the issue.
"This is kind of silly, but I got a Power Ranger," Tadre Jones said. "I was grateful, but I didn't really like it."
So we had no trouble conscripting 10 kids to participate in an economic experiment that aimed to improve the efficiency of gift giving.