A consumer is attempting to maximize utility in her consumption of Goods A and B. If her income and the price of Good A do not change, but the price of Good B decreases, this will:

In this section, we are going to take a closer look at what is behind the demand curve and the behavior of consumers. How does a consumer decide to spend his/her income on the many different things that he/she wants, i.e., food, clothing, housing, entertainment? We assume that the goal of the consumer is to maximize his/her level of satisfaction or joy, constrained by his/her income.

Economists use the term utility as a measure of satisfaction, joy, or happiness. How much satisfaction does a person gain from eating a pizza or watching a movie? Measuring utility is based solely on the preferences of the individual and has nothing to do with the price of the good. Let’s do an experiment in utility.

Step 01: Get some of your favorite candy, pastries, or cookies.

Step 02: Take a bite and evaluate, on a scale from 0 to 100 (with 100 being the greatest utility), the level of utility from that bite. Record the marginal utility of that bite (i.e., how much you get from that one additional bite).

Step 03: Repeat step 02. It is important to be consistent with each unit consumed, i.e., the same size and no drinking milk or water part way though. When you run out of candy or your marginal utility goes to zero you can stop.

Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility

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