It is the holiday season. The time of year when a lot of us spend a lot of money buying stuff for other people that we are not sure they are going to actually like.

And economists hate this. Which may sound kinda strange, but it always makes me think of one of my very favorite indicator episodes from a couple of years ago when my co-host, Cardiff Garcia and I talked with Tim Hartford about an economist Christmas. I hope you enjoy.

NPR.

The holiday season is an important time of year for many people, but it is a really important time of year for the economy.

Especially for retailers, right? A lot of retailers make more than half their annual sales this time of year. Holiday sales often set the economic tone for the following year as well. They are just a big deal.

So you would think that economists would love the holiday season.

Yeah, but there are a bunch of screges.

Maybe not. Economists have really weird ideas about gifts.

Yes, they have weird ideas about gifts because here is the thing about gifts. They are not necessarily efficient. For instance, you spend a lot of money on a sweater for your aunt, your aunt unwraps the sweaters.

Like, oh, wow, read your sweater. What I have always wanted. And you never wears it.

So you could say economists would say that money was basically wasted. And for economists, this situation is unbearable.

And so they are always recommending these weird alternatives, like giving people cash or just not giving people gifts at all.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Stacy Gennick Smith.

And I'm Cardiff Garcia. Today on the show, economists and gifts, it's complicated.

It's depressing.

It can be. Yeah.

We ask economist Tim Hartford, who is a columnist at the FT, and creator of the new podcast series, cautionary tales to answer for his economist colleagues, and to try and sell us on his version of the economically efficient gift.

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Economists are terrible about gifts.

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