The dreaded Christmas shopping period is reaching its peak. Some people have, but last-minute shoppers still need to answer the usual questions: How much to spend, who to give gifts to and, of course, which presents to get them.
Provided that gift-giving aims at making the recipient happy, it might pay to have a look at what economists have to say about gift-giving at Christmas. After all, economics is not about making people rich per se, as often claimed, it’s about making people happy, or in the terms of the discipline, …