Marginal utility Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
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 to the family, since the difference between 30 and 31 is proportionally smaller and the family's appetite may be satisfied by what it already has. Note that this example assumes that nothing else has changed. If the family that starts with only five slices also has much more cake than the family with 30 slices, then diminishing marginal utility need not apply. Also, if tastes or preferences vary between families or over time, this kind of differences in marginal utility need not apply. (Note also that this example assumes that each family has a unified utility function, rather than being a collection of indivdiuals each with his or her own preferences.)
Austrian economists formulated the law of marginal utility in a period when psychologists were much interested in the Weber-Fechner law of sensation. The Weber-Fechner law states that in order that the intensity of a sensation may achieve an arithmetic progression, the stimulus itself must achieve a geometric progression. For example, in a quiet environment, humans will notice even a small increase in noise level, but when the given noise level is already loud, humans will need a much larger increase in order to perceive a difference.
Von Wieser's seminal essay on "Natural Value" appeared in 1889. In 1890, the American psychologist William James wrote his Principles of Psychology and offered an interpretation of the Weber-Fechner law that may also shed a lot of light on marginal utility in von Weiser's sense. James saw the Weber-Fechner law as a rough generalization as to the friction in the neural machinery.
"If our feelings [of weight, sight, sound, etc.] resulted from a condition of the nerve molecules which it grew ever more difficult for the stimulus to increase, our feelings would naturally grow at a slower rate than the stimulus itself," he wrote. "An ever larger part of the latter's work would go to overcoming the resistances, and an ever smaller part to the realization of the feeling-bringing state."
Whatever the neurological basis, the result of diminishing marginal utility is that 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 result does not apply (since the two products are essentially the same), 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.
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