Hello and welcome to more or less. We're the program that whips data into a lovely fluffy cloud with stiff peaks,

then bakes it into a delectable meringue of number-edalite. I'm Tim Harford, and welcome to our statistical patisserie.

Ah, Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. If you have something to sell.

The economist Joel Wollfogel, author of Scrooge Nomics, has compared retail spending in December to that in November and January,

as a way of measuring the Christmas spending bump. That bump is, of course, small in countries that don't celebrate Christmas,

but it's over 35% in countries as varied as Hungary, Portugal, Brazil and South Africa.

And about 25% in the United States, it's a lot of money. Is it worth it?

We've all been there. The gift you spent ages selecting and wrapping, the one that's been nestling under the tree for days.

Finally, it's time to give that gift and it falls flat.

So, what if you could get the perfect gift every time?

Now, I'm going to utter possibly the sexiest combination of words that's ever been said on the radio waves.

Economic Psychology

Yes, some delightful nerds have done all the hard graft for us to calculate which gifts are statistically most likely to go down well.

A la Luria. To find out whether our gift's past muster, we spoke to Professor Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, author of Rebel Talent.

There are two goals that we should consider when wearing a roll of gift givers.

The first one is that we want to make the recipient happy. That's the idea behind the gift you're buying something because

you see the happiness and the smile when the person is opening the gift.

The second goal, which is also an important one, is that we give gifts to others because we want to strengthen the relationship between us and the person receiving the gift.

And usually that is something that we can achieve when the gift is thoughtful, when it's something memorable.

And usually that you've been thoughtful for many givers, involves figuring out the gift on your own without talking to the person directly.

It's a minor tragedy. We want to make people happy, but we also want to show that we understand them by giving them the perfect surprise gift.

And all too often our desire to surprise gets in the way of our desire to get it right. We overestimate ourselves.

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