Diminishing marginal utility and the teaching of economics: A note

Tamara Todorova ()

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: This paper discusses how utility can be taught in undergraduate courses in microeconomics so that to illustrate total and marginal utility, the law of diminishing marginal utility, and consumer rationality. Diminishing marginal utility is essential in describing rational consumer behavior, overconsumption, and oversaturation to students of economics. We demonstrate a quadratic and a logarithmic total utility with the subsequent forms and shapes of marginal utility. From what it seems there is no contradiction between diminishing marginal utility in the univariate context of consuming one good and the indifference curve as the multivariate case of two goods consumed.

Keywords: total utility; marginal utility; indifference curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B13 B41 D01 D11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/222942/1/Marginal%20utility.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Diminishing marginal utility and the teaching of economics: A note (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:222942

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