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In economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. In a normative context, utility refers to a goal or objective that we wish to maximize, i.e., an objective function.
In neoclassical economics, this utility is ultimately subjectively determined by the buyer of a good, and not objectively by the intrinsic characteristics of the good. Thus, neoclassical economists often talk about the marginal utility of a product, i.e., how its utility fluctuates according to consumption patterns. This kind of utility is a ...
Marginal utility, in mainstream economics, describes the change in utility (pleasure or satisfaction resulting from the consumption) of one unit of a good or service. [1]
In economics, a cardinal utility expresses not only which of two outcomes is preferred, but also the intensity of preferences, i.e. how much better or worse one outcome is compared to another. [ 1 ] In consumer choice theory , economists originally attempted to replace cardinal utility with the apparently weaker concept of ordinal utility .
The marginal utility of a good or service is the utility of its marginal use. Under the assumption of economic rationality, it is the utility of its least urgent possible use from the best feasible combination of actions in which its use is included.
Gossen's First Law is the "law" of diminishing marginal utility: that marginal utilities are diminishing across the ranges relevant to decision-making. Gossen's Second Law , which presumes that utility is at least weakly quantified, is that in equilibrium an agent will allocate expenditures so that the ratio of marginal utility to price ...
Utility maximization was first developed by utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. In microeconomics, the utility maximization problem is the problem consumers face: "How should I spend my money in order to maximize my utility?" It is a type of optimal decision problem.
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants [1] and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. [2] Economics focuses on the study of economic goods , or goods that are scarce ; in other words, producing the good requires expending effort or resources.