Comments on: Merry Christmas!

By: Where's Walden? » Dear Automobile magazine

Where's Walden? » Dear Automobile magazine — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:12:37 +0000

[...] notice, I’m really sorry, but this magazine just isn’t for me: it’s complete deadweight loss. How about in the future we go do something fun together, mutually agreed upon, instead?) Comments [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:46:21 +0000

Sounds good to me, Robert! Although, I think you meant what you said more narrowly as “the whole sense of celebrating Christmas by gift giving”. The argument is for the value of Christmas not being in gift-giving, not for it having none at all.

By: Robert Kaiser

Robert Kaiser — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:32:55 +0000

Once Christmas is about economics and cash for someone, then (sh)he should just cancel it and forget about it. Or radically change it and only give love, only give presents that cannot be expressed in monetary value at all.

All the giving of Christmas is not about value, it is about appreciation and love – if that dies, the whole sense of celebrating Christmas dies with it.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:16:19 +0000

I would rephrase your “fallacy” as “I necessarily like receiving a gift I value at X, plus associated exogenous value Y, no more than I like receiving the identical value X plus Y as money”, making it no longer a fallacy. It may simply happen for some, however, that assuming the giver can identify that particular gift, the corresponding Y may be prohibitively large. Some people have a knack for doing this, especially given some identities of the receiver. Many others, perhaps most others, do not, and for them a simple cash transfer with a suggestion makes far more sense.

There was no irony in the original post, although I admit the chance to troll a bit may have played a role at the margin, maybe even decisively causing the actual post to be made rather than merely contemplated.

By: Tony Mechelynck

Tony Mechelynck — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:21:39 +0000

P.S. Maybe I didn’t notice the irony in the original post, and swallowed the bait (how does one say in English) hook, line and sinker. Or maybe I didn’t express my thoughts the best way. Yet I do speak English fluently — for someone whose native language is French .

By: Tony Mechelynck

Tony Mechelynck — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:16:07 +0000

A useful shorthand, maybe; but it assumes that an unambiguous “liking” value can be assigned to any gift, and validly equated to a monetary value; it is this assumption which I challenge, and so do (with different wording) the authors of comments #2, 3 and 4. I believe that the assumption that “I necessarily like receiving the monetary price of X as much as or more than I like receiving X itself” is a fallacy.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:15:58 +0000

Nonsense. The concept of value is not merely limited to the monetary worth of the gift; it includes the thought and effort undertaken by the giver, and it includes the receiver’s appreciation of that worth, too. Talking of a single “value” concept is merely a useful shorthand.

By: Tony Mechelynck

Tony Mechelynck — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:27:54 +0000

This whole reasoning rests on a postulate, or maybe a set of postulates, which are, I think, not necessarily true, namely, that utility can be measured on a one-dimensional scale, and that making a gift of cash has no less utility to the receiver (pleasures him/her no less) than giving him whatever (s)he would most like to acquire at that price. In my experience, receiving some well-chosen gift can be much more fun than receiving the price of that gift; and the utility to both giver and recipient can be enormously higher in the case of a well-chosen gift which cannot be obtained through trade, such as a singleton gift (as a mathematician might say), handicrafted by the giver in person.

By: Preed

Preed — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:44:27 +0000

The analysis largely lacking from the economists’ point of view is (unsurprisingly) the sociologists’ one, namely that it is generally considered rude (or more charitably, “impersonal”), even if inefficient, to give, say, gift certificates or cash as gifts.

Doing so has a number of sociological implications (which may or may not actually exist), all of which are generally negative: “The giver doesn’t want to put in effort into figuring out what I would like,” “The giver values our relationship to be worth exactly this much currency at this point in time,” or “The giver didn’t feel it worth their time and effort to work out something easier than a withdrawal from their bank account,” (cf. the Dilbert cartoon.)

So while it may be efficient, we generally don’t do it: there’s a social taboo that, to use an economic term, provides a “barrier to entry” that turns out to be pretty costly.

But I’m sure it all sounded good at an economics symposium.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:14:08 +0000

If you want to show affection, I think there are better ways to do it than just guessing they’ll like something you decide to buy them. It’s sad that people now associate gift-giving with showing affection so strongly, even though it’s a horribly inefficient way of achieving that goal.

I hadn’t seen the Dilbert strip, it’s great.