Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility

Utility refers to the amount of satisfaction a person gets from consumption of a certain item.and marginal utility refers to the addition made to total utility, we get after consuming one more unit.

An individual's wants are unlimited in number yet each individual's want is satiable. Because of this, the more we have a commodity, the less we want to have more of it.
This law state that as the amount consumed of a commodity increases, the utility derived by the consumer from the additional units, i.e marginal utility goes on decreasing.


The law of diminishing marginal utility explains the downward sloping demand curve

Definition
According to Marshall, “The additional benefit a person derives from a given increase of his stock of a thing diminishes with every increase in the stock that he already has”

Assumptions:
All the units of a commodity must be same in all respects
The unit of the good must be standard
There should be no change in taste during the process of consumption
There must be continuity in consumption
There should be no change in the price of the substitute goods

Explanation:
As more and more quantity of a commodity is consumed, the intensity if desire decreases and also the utility derived from the additional unit.

Suppose a person eats Bread. and 1st unit of bread gives him maximum satisfaction. When he will eat 2nd bread his total satisfaction would increase. But the utility added by 2nd bread(MU) will be less then the 1st bread and this MU will continue to decrease as he will keep on eating additional piece of bread and once his stomach is full, MU will become negative, decreasing the total utility.

 His Total utility and marginal utility can be put in the form of a following schedule.



Plotting the above data on a graph gives


  • Here, from the MU curve we can see that MU is declinig as consumer consumes more of the commodity.
  • When TU is maximum, MU is Zero.
  • After that, TU starts declining and MU becomes negative.


Exceptions:
  • Money
  • Hobbies and Rare Things
  • Liquor and Music
  • Things of Display

Importance:
  • Basis of Law of Demand
  • Basis of Consumption Expenditure
  • The basis of Progressive Taxation

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very gud work here n very helpful. Thank you. :)

Anonymous said...

Can we recieve d ans to mobile?

Anonymous said...

super clarity of writing

Anonymous said...

thank u for ur help

Anonymous said...

Thank you.it was very helpful

Anonymous said...

Good work done

Kamya Vishwanath said...

THIS IS SO HELPFUL. Thanks a ton. :D
Made my life so much easier.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the clear explanation.
But I disagree with the examples. Everything object under demand is subject to this. Even money in a limiting case is subject to this!

Anonymous said...

great work keep it up man :) .

Risha said...

great work keep it up man :) .

Unknown said...

It's awesome. I love the clarity of answer. This is what I wanted......(:(:

Anonymous said...

No doubt I agree wid u

Student said...

very useful,THANKS

Anonymous said...

Very much useful

Anonymous said...

Good explaination. It's very helpful.
Thankyou

Anonymous said...

Why is money an exception?

Unknown said...

very nice

Anonymous said...

its the best of itself i have seen thank u a lot

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the INfo. it will be vey helpful

Anonymous said...

See.. Assume u are fond of apples... Nd u have consumed apple 1 u ll get highest amount of satisfaction... But as u go in consuming apples... At a certain point ur satisfaction will be negative.... But in case of money.. The more you get it.. The more u ll b satisfied... which is against the law of diminishing marginal utility..!!

Unknown said...

This was great! Keep up the good work. looking forward to more theories.

Anonymous said...

UNDERSTABLE. YOUR GIVING SHORT NOTES COMPLICATED TO UNDERSTAND .BE CEAR PLZ!!

Anonymous said...

this law can not be applied in knowledge and wealth because every person maximize his/her education and wealth.am I correct?

Anonymous said...

VERY HELPFUL NOTES

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GRACIELLA said...

THANKS ALOT 4 THE INFORMATION

Anonymous said...

Why is music an exception

Unknown said...

The post was really helpful and informative.

Unknown said...

The explanation was quiet interesting to learn.

Unknown said...

music is an exception because your utility increased instead of diminishing by listening more and more music and i did not fulfill the law of DMU.

Anonymous said...

i disagree with to some extent because in most cases people lose interest in a song and probably erase from their playlist.

Unknown said...

You might disagree but this is what we take as an assumption or limitation of the law. Otherwise what you are saying is also correct but all these laws say 'if other things remain constant'. In law of Demand you take consumer income to be fixed otherwise law is not applicable.
Feel free to ask if you have any further confusions or queries.

Unknown said...

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Anonymous said...

excess use of anything.......like eating or anything make us bore.and agin and again of that make us angry that can be explain as this law

Unknown said...

Thnx for right & clear explanation.... .!

Anonymous said...

Thnx for right & clear explanation.... .!

Unknown said...

thanks

Anonymous said...

thanks! its helpful

Anonymous said...

Ceteris Paribus, "all others things remain constant"

Anonymous said...

Yesterday my teacher taught me all these...I am wondered how he taught utility by saying line by line of this blog...well I am surprised...

Unknown said...

Useful

Unknown said...

Nice

Waqar Ahmed said...

A very informative post about the law of marginal utility. It help me lot to understand this important topic of economics

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Unknown said...

It's not CEAR its clear..

Unknown said...

Very use ful topic

Unknown said...

Nice

abhishek said...

nice and intersting post. Thanks

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