Marginalnyttan

Marginalnyttan, or marginal utility, is the additional satisfaction or value a consumer receives from consuming one more unit of a good or service. It measures how total utility changes when quantity consumed changes by one unit. In economic models, the marginalnyttan MU is often expressed as the derivative of the utility function U with respect to quantity q: MU = dU/dq. Utilities are theoretical and not directly observable, but marginalnyttan serves as a foundational concept for explaining and predicting consumer choice and demand.

A key feature is diminishing marginalnyttan: as more units of a good are consumed, each extra unit tends to add less extra satisfaction, so MU typically declines with increasing quantity. This tendency helps explain why demand curves slope downward: as consumption rises, the extra satisfaction per unit falls relative to price, and consumers are willing to buy less at higher prices. The relationship between MU and price is central to optimal consumption decisions.

Marginalnyttan is used in marginal analysis to describe how consumers allocate limited budgets to maximize total utility. In simple two-good models, the optimal choice occurs when the marginal utility per unit of currency is equal across goods (MUx/Px = MUy/Py). It also underpins welfare analysis, where changes in policy are evaluated by their marginal effects on overall welfare. Limitations include the ordinal nature of utility, the non-observability of exact utility levels, and difficulties in making interpersonal utility comparisons.