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In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost (also known as retrospective cost) is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Sunk costs are contrasted with prospective costs , which are future costs that may be avoided if action is taken. [ 3 ]
A costly signal in which the cost of an action is incurred upfront ("ex ante") is a sunk cost. An example of this would be the mobilization of an army as this sends a clear signal of intentions and the costs are incurred immediately. When the cost of the action is incurred after the decision is made ("ex post") it is considered to be tying hands.
From the traceability source of costs, sunk costs can be direct costs or indirect costs. If the sunk cost can be summarized as a single component, it is a direct cost; if it is caused by several products or departments, it is an indirect cost. Analyzing from the composition of costs, sunk costs can be either fixed costs or variable costs.
Alamy There are some economic terms most of us know and understand, such as supply and demand. And there are other terms we will probably never even run across, like implicit logrolling and a ...
Production costs directly affect a firm's profitability. In order to maximise profits, firms identify the cost minimising output level for a firm where marginal cost equals marginal revenue. The most common types of costs that are factored into this decision include: [89] Fixed costs; Variable costs; Marginal cost; Average total cost; Sunk costs
Examples: One of you keeps planning unique date nights or suggesting couples therapy or spicing up your (nonexistent) sex life or—you get it. You keep trying because you’ve already tried so hard.
The fixed cost refers to the cost that is incurred regardless of how much the firm produces. The variable cost is a function of the quantity of an object being produced. The cost function can be used to characterize production through the duality theory in economics, developed mainly by Ronald Shephard (1953, 1970) and other scholars (Sickles ...
The sunk-cost problem helps explain why it was so hard to end that war. It is worth considering this problem as we reflect on current wars. The sunk-cost fallacy applies in our thinking about the ...