Gossen's laws
Encyclopedia
Gossen's laws, named for Hermann Heinrich Gossen
Hermann Heinrich Gossen
Hermann Heinrich Gossen was a Prussian economist who is often regarded as the first to elaborate a general theory of marginal utility.-Life and work:...

 (1810 – 1858), are three ostensible laws of economics:
  • Gossen's First Law is the “law” of diminishing marginal utility: that marginal utilities
    Marginal utility
    In economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained from an increase in the consumption of that good or service...

     are diminishing across the ranges relevant to decision-making.
  • Gossen's Second Law
    Gossen's second law
    Gossen's Second “Law”, named for Hermann Heinrich Gossen , is the assertion that an economic agent will allocate his or her expenditures such that the ratio of the marginal utility of each good or service to its price is equal to that for every other good or service...

    , which presumes that utility
    Utility
    In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....

     is at least weakly quantified, is that in equilibrium an agent will allocate expenditures so that the ratio of marginal utility to price (marginal cost of acquisition) is equal across all goods and services.
where
  • is utility
  • is quantity of the -th good or service
  • is the price of the -th good or service
  • Gossen's Third Law is that scarcity
    Scarcity
    Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having humans who have unlimited wants and needs in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be...

     is a precondition for economic value.

See also

  • Hermann Heinrich Gossen
    Hermann Heinrich Gossen
    Hermann Heinrich Gossen was a Prussian economist who is often regarded as the first to elaborate a general theory of marginal utility.-Life and work:...

  • Law of diminishing marginal utility
  • Gossen's second law
    Gossen's second law
    Gossen's Second “Law”, named for Hermann Heinrich Gossen , is the assertion that an economic agent will allocate his or her expenditures such that the ratio of the marginal utility of each good or service to its price is equal to that for every other good or service...

  • Scarcity
    Scarcity
    Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having humans who have unlimited wants and needs in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be...

  • Marginalism
    Marginalism
    Marginalism refers to the use of marginal concepts in economic theory. Marginalism is associated with arguments concerning changes in the quantity used of a good or service, as opposed to some notion of the over-all significance of that class of good or service, or of some total quantity...

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