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    Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
    Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
    Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
    Audiobook3 hours

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

    Written by Joel Waldfogel

    Narrated by Lloyd James

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and-gift giving. Lots and lots--and lots--of gift giving. It's hard to imagine any Christmas without this time-honored custom. But let's stop to consider the gifts we receive--the rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike. How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Did your cousin really look excited about that jumping alarm clock? Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illuminates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste--to the shocking tune of eighty-five billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays.

    When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls "deadweight loss." Waldfogel discusses how this waste isn't confined to Americans--most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction. While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 5, 2009
    ISBN9781400830749
    Author

    Joel Waldfogel

    Joel Waldfogel is Frederick R. Kappell Chair in Applied Economics. Previously the Ehrenkranz Family Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, he has conducted empirical studies of price advertising, media markets, and issues related to digital products.

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    • 4/5
      Every Christmas for decades, our mother makes the same speech, which begins like this, “I know that some families go all out and spend big money on big presents, but we’re not one of those families… “ invariably, this is the point where someone will stop her because we’ve all heard the speech enough times that we know it by heart and honestly, there is no explanation necessary for the fact that there is not a brand new car in the driveway with a red bow on top. We have never been one of those families who shops until they drop or maxes out credit cards trying to keep up with the Joneses.

      Oh we are not immune to occasional splurges, but our people are frugal by nature and in recent times, by necessity as well. For years, as our extended family grew, we tried all kinds of different ways to control the gift-giving costs. We drew names and each person bought one gift for one other person. I’ll be the first to openly admit that I find that system unsatisfying. All too often, the match-ups were awkward, with son-in-law #1 buying something for son-in-law #2, whom he barely knows and has little in common with and the “family gift” feels like anything but. At another point, the great plan was to set a price limit on all gifts in the family exchange, which might have been more efficient if we just sat around and exchanged twenty-dollar bills.

      Examining Holiday Gift Giving from a purely economic standpoint, Joel Waldfogel’s book “Scroogenomics” backs up with statistical data, the sense that I’ve had for the last few years that all the cost and challenges and care we expend during the Season of Giving rarely delivers the joy we hope to impart. I wish I’d read this book when it came out in 2009. It would have saved me two full seasons of guilt, frustration and the kind of holiday stress that so many of us fall prey to year after year. Many words have been written (and you can be sure that there are many more to come) about how to avoid or address the Christmas Blues, but the ones in “Scroogenomics” are by far the most sensible, fact-based and reasonable ones I’ve read in ages. Perhaps ever.

      This year, I have officially given up feeling ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that the focus of my holiday season will NOT be on gifts. My ability to buy things for the people I love is not a fair measure of my affection for them, just as some trinket or token is not the best expression of their fondness for me. Living focused on things, whether we are giving or getting them, robs us of that which matters most.. spending time with the people we love, making memories and building holiday traditions that are low on stress and high on long-term, emotional rewards.