What Happens to Unspend Money?

UPDATE II:  On the other hand, maybe gift giving serves a different purpose.

"Though some economists argue otherwise, economics isn't that great at capturing the point of gift giving. Economics is centered on the idea of utility – a measurement of how useful something is to people, in a world of finite resources. But look around the world, and you see that there's good reason to think that gift giving is rarely motivated by practical concerns.

By contrast, there are many anthropological studies that show that gift giving is, and has always been, driven by factors much different than maximizing economic value." 

Read the Washington Post, Why cash is the worst gift.

UPDATE:  Want to ensure the highest satisfaction by your giftee, give cash.

"Many experts agree that money is a better bet than gifts for the holidays, primarily because people are more likely to buy things they’ll actually need and use with their own money. When someone spends $100 on herself, she usually gets $100 worth of satisfaction out of that item, argues University of Minnesota economics professor Joel Waldfogel. When someone else picks out the item for her, it’s almost always going to give her less value in return."

Read Slate, The Obama Girls Want Ca$h for Christmas, and So Should You.  

"Over at the Wall Street Journal, Phil Izzo reports that some $41 billion worth of gift cards have gone unused since 2005. So what, exactly, happens to that money? After all, retailers aren’t allowed to report the cash used to buy gift cards as income until the cards are actually redeemed. So there’s a murky area that arises when a gift card just gathers dust in a drawer for years, lost and forgotten."

Read the Washington Post, How your Best Buy gift card ends up in New York’s bank account.