1. UTILITY:
It is defined as the amount of satisfaction expected to be derived from the consumption of a good or service at a particular time. However, utility is a subjective concept and it differs from person to person, place to place and time to time.
Examples:
a) My grandparents are diabetic. So, for them Sugar-free tablets are utility. Whereas for me, those tablets are not my utility.
b) I love shopping clothes but my sister do not find much interest in shopping. So,shopping possesses utility for me whereas it has no immediate utility for my sister.
2. SUBSTITUTES-COMPLIMENTS:
A substitute good is a substitute for something else.When the price increases for one good, the demand for the substitute increases.
Complimentary goods literally compliment each other. They are the items that go together and so when the price of one good increases, the demand for the other decreases.
Examples:
a) Tea and Coffee are substitutes. that is if i want to have coffee but its unavailable, i can go with tea.
b) Fruits like Watermelon and Muskmelon are also substitutes. I want to buy watermelon but if i find that its cost is more when compared to muskmelon, i choose to buy muskmelon.
a) Car and diesel are compliments. You cant use one item without other. If the price of cars increases, the demand for diesel may decrease.
b) Bread and Milk are also compliments and they both go together.
Here, In short we can say that Diesel compliments Car whereas Car is a substitute to City bus or Metro. Similarly, Milk is compliment to Bread whereas Bread substitutes Marie-gold biscuits.
3. CARDINAL-ORDINAL UTILITY:
Cardinal approach is the one, which rests on the assumption that utility can be measured.Utility is stated in terms of Utils. It implies that utility can be quantified, measured or compared. In brief, the numbers 1,2,3,4 etc are cardinal numbers. The number 2 for example is twice the size of 1.
Ordinal approach simply states that the utility is used for grading or ranking of the product depending on the preferences but it cant be measured. It is much easier as it facilitate easy comparison. In brief, 1st,2nd,3rd,4th etc are ordinal numbers. These can be ordered or ranked.
Examples:
a) A burger may provide 40 utils and a pizza may provide 50 utils to me. Cardinal utility infers that pizza has more utility to me than the burger has and it is by 10 utils that the pizza provides more utility over burger. And for ordinal utility, i may prefer pizza over burger. It shows by how much pizza is preferred over burger. The ordinal approach will give a sense of preferences, likes and dislikes but there is no numerical measurement. It assumes that utility cannot be measured but is of great help in understanding how preferences results into choices.
b) I went to a hill station for a trip and there were 2 points on the hilltop. Those points were located at different heights. lets consider the two points as A and B. The ordinal approach will tell that A is higher than B. The cardinal approach will tell the actual height of two points. How much A is higher than B or how much B is lower than A.
4. LAW OF DIMINISHING MARGINAL UTILITY:
It states that the more we have of a thing, the less is the utility we get from the consumption of every additional unit of that particular thing.
Examples:
a) I went to watch a movie and i loved it. Let the amount utility i got here is 1000 utils. Then i went to the same movie again for the second time with my family. now, the utility i will have is 500 utils. I again went to the movie for the third time with my friends and thereby getting only 100 utils as the more number of times i go to watch the same movies despite of liking it, the less is the utility i feel. If i go and watch the movie for the fourth time ,then i can feel dis-utility where i get utils negative value.
b) I was very thirsty and so i drank water. When i drank the first glass, the amount i consumed was 100 utils as i was thirsty. Next when i drank the second glass of water, i had 50 utils, it is around 20 utils for the third glass and by this time i am totally satisfied. Even then i drank the fourth glass of water and here i will get -10 utils as i am out of thirst.
5.CONSUMER SURPLUS:
It can be defined as the difference between the price consumer is willing to pay and consumer actually pay.
Examples:
a) I went to a parlor for having a haircut willing to pay about 700 rupees for it. But when i went i got to know that it the charge for the desired haircut was 500 rupees. Here, i saved 200 rupees because i was ready to pay 700 rupees. This gain of 200/- is called as Consumer surplus.
b) I went to buy a gift for my sister on her birthday, I liked and selected one and thought of paying around 1000/- rupees for it. But during the billing, by negotiating the shopkeeper accepted to sell it for 800/-. So the amount of 200/- that i gained here is called as Consumer surplus.
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