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Why does Father Christmas wear red and white? It's not for the reason you may think. In an updated version of an episode from 2018, Tim Harford tells the story of Christmas and consumerism.

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16 minutes

Last on

Mon 23 Dec 2019 04:50GMT

Sources

Coca-Cola didn’t invent Santa ... the 10 biggest Christmas myths debunked

Does Santa Claus still drink White Rock?

The Origins of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Stephen Nissenbaum The Battle For Christmas Alfred Knopf: New York 1997 and Bruce David Forbes America’s Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories University of California Press, Oakland 2015

Stephen Nissenbaum The Battle For Christmas

Bruce David Forbes America’s Favorite Holidays

John Tierney “The Big City, Christmas, and the Spirit of Commerce” The New York Times 21 December 2001

Joel Waldfogel Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents For The Holidays Princeton University Press Woodstock 2009

Waldfogel Scroogenomics

Harriet Beecher Stowe “Christmas; or, The Good Fairy” National Era 4 (26 December 1850)

Maria Frazee Santa Claus: The World’s Number One Toy Expert 2005

Waldfogel, Joel. “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.” The American Economic Review, vol. 83, no. 5, 1993, pp. 1328–1336.

The World Bank includes the IBRD (which makes non-concessional loans) and IDA (which makes concessional loans) and each lent about $20bn in 2017

Jennifer Pate Offenberg “Markets: Gift Cards”  Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 21, Number 2—Spring 2007

Francesca Gino, Francis J. Flynn “Give them what they want: The benefits of explicitness in gift exchange” Journal of Experimental Psychology 2011 

Broadcasts

  • Sat 21 Dec 2019 05:50GMT
  • Sat 21 Dec 2019 14:50GMT
  • Sun 22 Dec 2019 14:50GMT
  • Sun 22 Dec 2019 15:50GMT
  • Sun 22 Dec 2019 22:50GMT
  • Mon 23 Dec 2019 04:50GMT

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