Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:58:21.960Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Concluding remarks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2023

Bert Mosselmans
Affiliation:
University College Roosevelt, Middelburg
Get access

Summary

This concludes our brief survey of the history of marginalism. I hope that this short exploration contributes to a more intuitive understanding of economic theory, which may complement the analytical understanding that is fostered by textbooks in (any subfield of) economics.

Thinking about the margin emerges on the supply side, where the scarcity of certain resources, particularly fertile land, implies diminishing marginal returns. Thinking about the margin also emerges on the demand side, where continued consumption implies diminishing marginal utility. These lines of thought examine the forces that underlie supply and demand, and lead up to a theory of exchange. This theory gave rise to a model of general equilibrium, which represents the interdependency between all markets, assuming that perfectly competitive conditions prevail. But marginalism is also relevant for the study of imperfect competition, which examines the consequences of substantial market power, usually exercised by a small number of large firms.

Marginalism can also be seen as a theory of economic decision-making, with a “process-oriented” and “subjective” approach. Marginalism is everywhere in modern economic theory, especially in microeconomics. But it is also relevant for macroeconomics, for welfare economics, for environmental economics – indeed, it would be hard, if not impossible, to imagine the field of economics without the central notions about the “margin”.

Marginalism should probably not be seen as an economic “theory” as such, but rather as a “tool” that is visible in all fields and subfields of modern economics. And it should be seen as a “positive” tool, used to examine conditions of efficiency, and not as a “normative” tool, used to argue in favour of or against a certain distribution of income.

Type
Chapter
Information
Marginalism , pp. 173 - 174
Publisher: Agenda Publishing
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Concluding remarks
  • Bert Mosselmans, University College Roosevelt, Middelburg
  • Book: Marginalism
  • Online publication: 09 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781911116684.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Concluding remarks
  • Bert Mosselmans, University College Roosevelt, Middelburg
  • Book: Marginalism
  • Online publication: 09 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781911116684.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Concluding remarks
  • Bert Mosselmans, University College Roosevelt, Middelburg
  • Book: Marginalism
  • Online publication: 09 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781911116684.009
Available formats
×