Definition of Pareto efficiency Pareto efficiency is said to occur when it is impossible to make one party better off without making someone worse off. A Pareto improvement is said to occur when at least one individual becomes better off without anyone becoming worse off. Pareto efficiency will occur on a production possibility frontier. When …
Transactional utility is a term to describe the happiness a consumer gets from the perceived value of the deal. ‘Transactional utility’ was developed by Richard Thaler and is said to be the difference between the actual price and your reference price – the price you expect to pay. Example, Suppose you expect to pay $50 …
A Pareto improvement occurs when an economic action leads to a net welfare gain, without anyone being made worse off. See also: Pareto efficiency. Pareto improvement and a production possibility curve Moving from point D to A or B – leads to a Pareto improvement because we can produce both more services and goods. However, …
Mental accounting is a concept to describe how individuals can separate their budget into different accounts for specific purposes. For example, we may earmark $50 a week for entertainment and $100 for food. Mental accounting suggests people do not treat money as fungible (the concept all money is interchangeable), but mentally link spending to particular …
Specialisation occurs when workers are assigned specific tasks within a production process. Workers will require less training to be an efficient worker. Therefore this will lead to an increase in labour productivity and firms will be able to benefit from economies of scale (lower average costs with increased output) and increased efficiency. Examples of specialisation …
Definition consumption externality This occurs when consuming a good cause either a positive or negative externality to a third party. Positive consumption externality When consuming a good gives a benefit to others. Examples include: Going to university. Your education gives benefit to rest of society (You can teach others) Taking medicine which prevents spread of …
In recent years, airlines have become adept at charging customers for ‘extra services’. These extra services include: Seats with more leg room. Choosing a seat earlier Paying a penalty to check in at airport (budget airlines) Priority boarding Checked in luggage (budget airlines) Meals debit /credit card surcharges (Ryanair) Economic concepts involved Price discrimination/ price targeting …
Homo Economicus is a hypothetical concept that humans are: Self-interested Know what they want Make rational choices to maximise their utility. These choices are based on the concept of marginal utility. This concept of a rational economic man is an important cornerstone of neo-classical economic theory. It creates a framework to model how consumers and …