Do Not Buy Dad a Tie

The indisputable fact is that cash is the most economically efficient gift. But cash is, in many cases, socially unacceptable, which means you need to pursue an alternative approach. Here your best bet is to show a taste for risk. The problem with presents is that you?re never going to do a better job of satisfying the gift-recipient?s preferences than she could do herself. But preference sets aren?t fixed. If someone had handed me $10, I never would have spent it buying the Cults album, for the simple reason that I hadn?t heard of the band. When it was given to me, I immediately checked it out and loved it. When you step outside the circle of things you know for sure your gift-getter likes, you risk creating a massive deadweight loss. (You give her a ticket to Las Vegas, without knowing that she hates gambling.) But with the greater risk comes a greater potential reward. You may introduce the recipient to something marvelous she would otherwise have never encountered. Giving stuff rather than cash is a way of saying you know better than the recipient what she really wants. The riskier the present, the more likely it is to generate significant benefit. (So, not a sweater.)

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=72cae23e9cd4e8c8f6406979ceae454a

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