But Waldfogel's studies also suggest a very different solution: if most of the presents we buy are going to be less valuable in monetary terms than in sentimental ones, then there's no reason to believe that the more expensive gift is a better gift.
Nonetheless, it means Summers has had valuable time to get to know Obama, while Yellen has not.
It used to be an opportunist crime – a dog taken from outside a shop, for instance – but now "it's much more about organised crime, where particular places are targeted, [such as] kennels, where there can be multiple thefts, particularly for valuable dogs".
Bringing a prosecution under this act was always going to be difficult because it requires an explicit agreement to pay money or some other "valuable consideration", such as a loan, in return for an honour.
Eggs are also valuable; besides their nutritional worth, they are used in their millions to produce our annual flu vaccines, as well as offering a means to explore embryo development and even test theories of how birds evolved from dinosaurs.
The estate is valuable because we are just two or three minutes from the City of London.
He takes the opportunity to have a quick lie-down, eating up valuable seconds.
To quote just one: "So here is a specific and valuable advance in knowledge that could only have been attained by experimentation on animals that closely resemble us; experiments which are, as far as we can tell, almost painless".
The removal of the cap on private patient income means trusts will be able to make more of their income from private patients, to the detriment of NHS patients because the private sector people will be more valuable.
Unsurprisingly, McDonald's itself argues strongly that work in the service sector is valuable – it tried to have the phrase McJob removed from the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007, and in December 2011, McDonald's UK chief executive Jill McDonald told the Guardian the word "undermines the hard work and achievements not only of our people but of all those working in the food service industry".
If the pressure of this dramatic Championship season is increasing on those sides chasing Premier League status, it did not show on Good Friday on an afternoon when all four top-eight sides in action collected valuable wins.
