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Gossen's First Law is the "law" of diminishing marginal utility: that marginal utilities are diminishing across the ranges relevant to decision-making. Gossen's Second Law , which presumes that utility is at least weakly quantified, is that in equilibrium an agent will allocate expenditures so that the ratio of marginal utility to price ...
In the context of cardinal utility, liberal economists postulate a law of diminishing marginal utility. This law states that the first unit of consumption of a good or service yields more satisfaction or utility than the subsequent units, and there is a continuing reduction in satisfaction or utility for greater amounts.
The law of diminishing marginal utility is said to explain the paradox of water and diamonds, most commonly associated with Adam Smith, [13] although it was recognized by earlier thinkers. [14] Human beings cannot even survive without water, whereas diamonds, in Smith's day, were ornamentation or engraving bits.
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Gossen's Second “Law”, named for Hermann Heinrich Gossen (1810–1858), is the assertion that an economic agent will allocate his or her expenditures such that the ratio of the marginal utility of each good or service to its price (the marginal expenditure necessary for its acquisition) is equal to that for every other good or service.
Within marginal utility, the law of diminishing marginal utility describes that the benefit to a consumer of an additional unit is inversely related to the number of current units, demonstrating that the added benefit of each new unit is less than the unit prior. [2] An example of this could be demonstrated by a family buying dinner.
Given that this is usually a negative sign, there is room for a law of diminishing marginal utility in cardinal utility theory. The magnitude of the second derivative of a differentiable utility function is not the same for all cardinal utility indices representing the same specific preference structure.
Marginal utility usually decreases with consumption of the good, the idea of "diminishing marginal utility". In calculus notation, the marginal utility of good X is =. When a good's marginal utility is positive, additional consumption of it increases utility; if zero, the consumer is satiated and indifferent about consuming more; if negative ...