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In economics, a demerit good is "a good or service whose consumption is considered unhealthy, degrading, or otherwise socially undesirable due to the perceived negative effects on the consumers themselves"; [1] [2] [3] it could be over-consumed if left to market forces of supply and demand.
Overproduction is the accumulation of unsalable inventories in the hands of businesses. Overproduction is a relative measure, referring to the excess of production over consumption. The tendency for an overproduction of commodities to lead to economic collapse is specific to the capitalist economy. In previous economic formations, an abundance ...
Other possible rationales for treating some commodities as merit (or demerit) goods include public-goods aspects of a commodity, imposing community standards (prostitution, drugs, etc.), immaturity or incapacity, and addiction. A common element of all of these is recommending for or against some goods on a basis other than consumer choice. [4]
The other side of over-production is the over-accumulation of productive capital: more capital is invested in production than can obtain a normal profit. The consequence is a recession (a reduced economic growth rate) or in severe cases, a depression (negative real growth, i.e. an absolute decline in output).
Underconsumption is a theory in economics that recessions and stagnation arise from an inadequate consumer demand, relative to the amount produced. In other words, there is a problem of overproduction and overinvestment during a demand crisis.
The recovery eventually leads to another boom because the lag for gestation of fixed capital investment results in prices that continue such investment until eventually the completed projects deliver overproduction and a crash. [45] There is a long history of interpreting crisis theory, rather as a theory of cycles than of crisis.
Mathematically, social marginal cost is the sum of private marginal cost and the external costs. [3] For example, when selling a glass of lemonade at a lemonade stand, the private costs involved in this transaction are the costs of the lemons and the sugar and the water that are ingredients to the lemonade, the opportunity cost of the labor to combine them into lemonade, as well as any ...
The level of price inflation for different types of goods and services. [18] Taxes, levies, subsidies and credit policies of governments, interest and rent costs. [19] Capital investment into areas of (previously) non-capitalist production, where a lower organic composition of capital prevailed. [20]