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Jessica Olsen

marginal utility (economics) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia - 0 views

  • These economists believed that price was partly determined by a commodity’s utility—that is, the degree to which it satisfies a consumer’s needs and desires. This definition of utility, however, led to a paradox when applied to prevailing price
  • relations.
  • Thus, the marginal utility to a buyer of a product decreases as he purchases more and more of that product, until the point is reached at which he has no need at all of additional units. The marginal utility is then zero.
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  • The concept of marginal utility was augmented in the 20th century by the method of analysis known as indifference analysis (see indifference curve).
  • marginal utility, in economics, the additional satisfaction or benefit (utility) that a consumer derives from buying an additional unit of a commodity or service. The concept implies that the utility or benefit to a consumer of an additional unit of a product is inversely related to the number of units of that product he already owns.
  • marginal utility. (2013). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/364750/marginal-utility
Jessica Olsen

U.S. Income Distribution: Just How Unequal? | Inequality.org - 0 views

  • he Gini coefficient was first defined in a 1912 paper by the Italian economist Corrado Gini (1884-1965). The coefficient measures the degree the degree of concentration in a country’s income distribution. Social statisticians today use many different inequality measures, but none more than the Gini coefficient.
  • The Gini coefficient amounts to a kind of percentage and can run from 0 to 100. A Gini of 0 represents 0 percent concentration in a country’s income distribution. In a country with a Gini coefficient of 0, everyone receives exactly the same income
  • A Gini coefficient of 100 represents 100 percent concentration in a country’s income distribution. In a country with a Gini of 100, one person receives all of the country’s income. Everyone else gets nothing.
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  • A Gini of 50 could mean that half the people share all of the income while the other half get nothing. In other words, a country that literally consisted of haves and have-nots in a 50-50 split would have a Gini coefficient of 50.
  • According to the Census Bureau, the official Gini coefficient for the United States was 46.9 in 2010, the most recent year with data available. This is way up from the all-time low of 38.6 set in 1968.
  • A major gap in the measurement of income inequality is the exclusion of capital gains, profits made on increases in the value of investments. Capital gains are excluded for purely practical reasons. The Census doesn’t ask about them, so they can’t be included in inequality statistics.
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