Academic

van de Ven on the Economics of Gifts

By Lawrence Solum

Jeroen van de Ven (University of Amsterdam) has posted The Economics Of The Gift on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

the past, gift-giving has interested mainly anthropologists because it was taken to be a primitive mode of exchange. Recent contributions of economists acknowledge however that gift-giving is still present in modern exchange economies. In this paper gifts are characterized by motivations. Two main features of gift giving are to be explained: (in-)adequacy and (non-)reciprocity. It is argued that social approval is potentially a powerful explanation of gift-giving. We relate the results to the market economy and try to explain the anomaly that gift-giving is sometimes reduced after compensation is offered.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on December 25, 2009 (boomark / email).