Marginal Utility

Definition: Marginal Utility

Marginal Utility

Noun

1. (economics) the amount that utility increases with an increase of one unit of an economic good or service.

Specialty Definition: Marginal utility

In economics, marginal utility is the additional utility (satisfaction or benefit) that a consumer derives from an additional unit of a commodity or service. The concept grew out of attempts by 19th-century economists to explain the fundamental economic reality of price. It was a term coined by the Austrian economist Friedrich von Wieser.

Diminishing marginal utility implies that marginal utility from one additional unit is inversely related to the number of units already owned. For example, the marginal utility of one slice of bread offered to a family that has five slices will be great, since the family will be less hungry and the difference between five and six is proportionally significant. An extra slice offered to a family that has 30 slices will have less marginal utility, since the difference between 30 and 31 is proportionally smaller and the family's appetite may be satisfied by what it already has. As a result, rather than having a lot of one good or a lot of another one, one prefers having some of both. In the case of perfect substitutes this does not apply, in the case of perfect complements it applies most.

Diminishing marginal utility is a very common assumption in economics, but it is not universally assumed. It corresponds to convexity of the indifference curves.

See also

Economics
Microeconomics
Utility
Marginalism

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Marginal Utility

Modern Translations: Marginal Utility

Language		Translations for "marginal utility"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Hungarian		határhaszon (margin of profitableness). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		限界効�"� . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		�'�"かい�"うよう. (various references)

Pig Latin		arginalmay ilityutay

Swedish		gränsnytta. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Anagrams: Marginal Utility

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-g-i-i-i-l-l-m-n-r-t-t-u-y"
	-3 letters: antimilitary.
	-4 letters: imaginarily, marginality, matutinally, utilitarian.
	-5 letters: airmailing, alarmingly, angularity, illuminati, limitingly, marginally, maturating, militantly, militarily, militating, multigrain, mutilating, rattlingly, trilingual, ultimating, unmilitary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Alternative Orthography: Marginal Utility

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

4D 61 72 67 69 6E 61 6C 55 74 69 6C 69 74 79

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01001101 01100001 01110010 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01010101 01110100 01101001 01101100 01101001 01110100 01111001

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#77 &#97 &#114 &#103 &#105 &#110 &#97 &#108 &#32 &#85 &#116 &#105 &#108 &#105 &#116 &#121

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

004D 0061 0072 0067 0069 006E 0061 006C 0055 0074 0069 006C 0069 0074 0079

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
marginal utility	16
diminishing law marginal utility	6
diminishing marginal utility	5
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Marginal Utility

Definition: Marginal Utility