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Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Law of diminishing marginal utility, diminishing marginal revenue

In one workshop on taxation and smuggling, I briefly explained the concept or theory of the "law of diminishing marginal utility" or declining satisfaction, happiness, as more of a good, a commodity or service is consumed or used. Then its variant, the "law of diminishing marginal revenue" or declining revenue as more inputs are added.

From Investopedia,

The law of diminishing marginal utility states that all else equal, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines. Marginal utility is the incremental increase in utility that results from the consumption of one additional unit. "Utility" is an economic term used to represent satisfaction or happiness.

In simple terms, the law of diminishing marginal utility means that the more of an item that you use or consume, the less satisfaction you get from each additional unit consumed or used.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp 

And here is a basic illustration.

https://www.sarthaks.com/905283/elucidate-the-law-of-diminishing-marginal-utility-with-a-diagram

My own example of diminishing marginal utility is drinking beer. Say a person has an average optimal intake level of 6 bottles. So drinking the first 5 bottles leads to rising fun, the 6th bottle seem to peak for the person's fun. The 7th bottle, the person starts to walk wobbly, the 8th bottle the person cannot walk straight, starts to fall down, the 9th bottle starts to puke or vomit, the 10th bottle can no longer drive back home, might meet an accident. Declining utility or fun as more bottles are added, can lead to negative utility.

One important variant is the law of diminishing marginal revenue. In taxation, as the tax rate goes up, government revenues tend to decline after sometime. It is represented by a "Laffer Curve" which essentially shows the behavior of diminishing or declining marginal utility.


In Filipino, "tama lang, hindi sobra, hindi kulang". Pag sobra, usually suwapang na, like overhyped tax rate like in so-called "sin products."
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See also:
Bank failures in the US, Europe partly due to DIE and ESG, April 04, 2023
On de-dollarization trend among countries, April 24, 2023

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