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Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays (Hardcover)

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1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays + SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance + Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Waldfogel (The Tyranny of the Market) delivers a badly needed poke in the eye at holiday-time consumer madness, positing that not only is compulsory gift giving stressful and expensive, but it's economically unsound. Purchases are usually a zero-sum game—a $50 sweater is bought only when it is worth $50 or more to the consumer. But most gifts are relatively worthless to the less-than-enthused recipient, thus severing the link between the buying decision and the item's value. Addressing the $66 billion in retail sales during the 2007 Christmas season, the author's bewilderment is evident when he asks—would anyone buy this stuff for himself or herself? does anybody want it?—and answers his own question with a quote suggesting that gift giving may be too firmly entrenched to budge: There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that nobody wants, and nobody cares for after they are got. That's Harriet Beecher Stowe back in 1850. This lively, spot-on book may be the one gift that still makes sense to buy come Black Friday. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Review

Waldfogel delivers a badly needed poke in the eye at holiday-time consumer madness, positing that not only is compulsory gift giving stressful and expensive, but it's economically unsound. . . . This lively, spot-on book may be the one gift that still makes sense to buy come Black Friday.
(Publishers Weekly )

Waldfogel assesses holiday gift giving though the lens of economic tenets such as opportunity costs and deadweight loss. The result is a short but engaging manifesto on the inefficiency of the tradition, concluding with several solutions to increase satisfaction for both givers and receivers. Although his own suggestions mandate that you not buy this book for someone who wanted something else, fans of Freakonomics and The Economic Naturalist may love it.
(Library Journal )
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 186 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press (October 25, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691142645
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691142647
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,974 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #24 in  Books > Nonfiction > Holidays
    #75 in  Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Macroeconomics
    #88 in  Books > Business & Investing > Marketing & Sales > Consumer Behavior

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Joel Waldfogel
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3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars poorly thought out, November 13, 2009
By Tom "Crane" Bradley (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
The author's advice about giving gift cards is remarkably inane, even by the author's own standards. His basic argument is that gifts often prove undesirable to the recipient, so that the giver's expenditure is a transaction that involves deadweight loss. Accepting this premise, how to respond to the problem. "I know. Instead of giving you an object that you might not like, why don't I give you some amount of money to spend as you like? That way you can be sure of getting full value. Wait, that's too easy. I know, instead of giving you that amount of money, I'll *spend* that amount of money, radically constraining your choice by forcing you to buy something at a store that might not have anything you particularly want. That way, I can also be sure that you'll end up having to spend some money of your own, since it's most unlikely that you'll find something which, with tax, comes to exactly $100. So either the store benefits from the unused portion of the card (deadweight loss again) or the recipient gets to pay something extra to the store. And that way, the store can have the benefit of my money while it takes you a while to find something that you really want there. After all, shouldn't the store, rather than the recipient, have the benefit of the time value of the money while you're waiting? and also, that way, if the store decides that they won't allow gift cards for certain kinds of purchases, or wishes to attach certain kinds of conditions (such as that the card must be used within a certain amount of time or else it expires) they can further restrict the recipient's options." In short, giving gift cards is the last advice I would expect from any economist, let alone an economist who objects to the losses associated with gift-giving.
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10 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A book only an academic isolated in academia could love, October 21, 2009
By Antone (Swarthmore PA, USA) - See all my reviews
The most positive thing about this very short book is that it took two hours to read. The punch line is that Christmas gifts are wasteful because on average recipients would rather have spent the money from the gift on something else. Therefore Waldfogel concludes that we would be better off if we stopped giving presents. Waldfogel had asked some college students whether this was true back in the early 1990s. That is the book right there.

The problem is that the book is so shallow on so many levels. Here is a question: Is it possible that some of these students' parents gave them some gifts that the parents thought they should have? Perhaps something that the parents thought would make the child a better person? There is another benefit from presents that Waldfogel ignores. Giving the present also provides information to the recipient on whether the giver understands the recipient and cares about them. Presents can help show that you really care about someone. You might not give them the exact present that they wanted the most, but the closer you get, the more you help convince the recipient that you really do care about them. If these possibilities are correct, Waldfogel's conclusion that presents are wasteful is wrong. Giving people the money equivalent of the presents would not be useful in accomplishing either of these two goals. People appreciate the time that the giver spent in trying to figure what the recipient wanted and that the giver showed that he or she really understood the recipient.
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