Definition: Law of diminishing marginal returns At a certain point, employing an additional factor of production causes a relatively smaller increase in output. Diminishing returns occur in the short run when one factor is fixed (e.g. capital) If the variable factor of production is increased (e.g. labour), there comes a point where it will become …
Diminishing marginal utility of income and wealth suggests that as income increases, individuals gain a correspondingly smaller increase in satisfaction and happiness. In layman’s terms – “more money may not make you happy” Alfred Marshall popularised concepts of diminishing marginal utility in his Principles of Economics (1890) “The additional benefit a person derives from a …
Marginal propensity to save (MPS) refers to the proportion of any extra income that is saved by consumers. For an individual, the marginal propensity to save will reflect how much they want to put extra income into different forms of saving. For example, if a worker receives a pay rise of £1,000 and they add …
Distributive efficiency occurs when goods and services are consumed by those who need them most. Distributive efficiency is concerned with an equitable distribution of resources because of the law of diminishing marginal returns. The Law of diminishing marginal returns states that as consumption of a good increase we tend to get diminishing marginal utility. For …
At the start of the academic year, I always feel a little pressure to justify the study of economics. Students come up asking things like, should they do economics or history? It’s hard to know what to say, but to get people excited about economics it’s good to try and think how economics can be …
The fundamental economic problem is the issue of scarcity but unlimited wants. Scarcity implies there is only a limited quantity of resources, e.g. finite fossil fuels. Because of scarcity, there is a constant opportunity cost – if you use resources to consume one good, you cannot consume another. Therefore, an underlying feature of economics is …
Microeconomic topics Consumer and producer surplus Demand Substitute goods Complements Economies of scale Elasticity Price elasticity of demand Cross elasticity of demand Income elasticity of demand Price elasticity of supply Market equilibrium Production possibility frontiers Positive and normative statements Opportunity cost Specialisation and division of labour Market failure Positive externalities – the benefit to a …
Definition: The environmental Kuznets curve suggests that economic development initially leads to a deterioration in the environment, but after a certain level of economic growth, a society begins to improve its relationship with the environment and levels of environmental degradation reduces. From a very simplistic viewpoint, it can suggest that economic growth is good for …