HARI SREENIVASAN: Were getting to that time of the holiday season when people are scrambling a bit to lock down that special gift, often wondering what would make a good choice.

But what if behavioral economics and behavioral science could actually help determine more useful choices?

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, has been looking into that very question, part of his ongoing reporting on Making Sense of financial news.

PAUL SOLMAN: Demoing a favorite gadget coming out of Santas workshop in recent years, an ideal gift for the hard-to-rouse, a behavioral economics alarm clock.

Clocky is among numerous products based on insights from one of the newest and fastest growing branches of economics.

Harvards Sendhil Mullainathan is a pioneer.

SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN, Harvard University: Were used to biological science or semiconductors leading to new inventions. But now were starting to see how behavioral science, just not new technologies, but new understandings of the human mind, are leading to new inventions

PAUL SOLMAN: So, we asked Mullainathan and his team here at ideas42, a New York-based behavioral economics consultancy, to suggest some holiday gifts already on the market.

The first is a simple new take on an old invention, for the overeaters among us, a smaller plate.

SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN: This plate is actually the size of plates from the 1960s. So its not just our waistlines that have gotten bigger. Its our plates that have gotten bigger.

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This holiday season, behavioral economics could be a gift that keeps giving