Indifference curveIn economics, an indifference curve connects points on a graph representing different quantities of two goods, points between which a consumer is indifferent. That is, any combinations of two products indicated by the curve will provide the consumer with equal levels of utility, and the consumer has no preference for one combination or bundle of goods over a different combination on the same curve.
Social welfare functionIn welfare economics and social choice theory, a social welfare function—also called a socialordering, ranking, utility, or choicefunction—is a function that ranks a set of social states by their desirability. Each person's preferences are combined in some way to determine which outcome is considered better by society as a whole. It can be viewed as mathematically formalizing Rousseau's idea of a general will.
Preference (economics)In economics, and in other social sciences, preference refers to an order by which an agent, while in search of an "optimal choice", ranks alternatives based on their respective utility. Preferences are evaluations that concern matters of value, in relation to practical reasoning. Individual preferences are determined by taste, need, ..., as opposed to price, availability or personal income. Classical economics assumes that people act in their best (rational) interest.
Real numberNumber representing a continuous quantityReal numbers can be thought of as all points on a number line.In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one-dimensionalquantity such as a length, duration or temperature. Here, continuous means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every real number can be almost uniquely represented by an infinite decimal expansion.
Edgeworth boxIn economics, an Edgeworth box, sometimes referred to as an Edgeworth-Bowley box, is a graphical representation of a market with just two commodities, X and Y, and two consumers. The dimensions of the box are the total quantities Ωx and Ωy of the two goods. Let the consumers be Octavio and Abby. The top right-hand corner of the box represents the allocation in which Octavio holds all the goods, while the bottom left corresponds to complete ownership by Abby.
Gérard DebreuGérard Debreu (French:; 4 July 1921 – 31 December 2004) was a French-born economist and mathematician. Best known as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began work in 1962, he won the 1983 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. BiographyHis father was the business partner of his maternal grandfather in lace manufacturing, a traditional industry in Calais.
Transitive relationIn mathematics, a binary relationR on a setX is transitive if, for all elements a, b, c in X, whenever R relates a to b and b to c, then R also relates a to c. Every partial order and every equivalence relation is transitive.EconomicsEconomics () is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as the basic elements of economies, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of those interactions. Individual agents may include households, firms, buyers, and sellers.
Pareto efficiencyIn welfare economics, a Pareto improvement formalizes the idea of an outcome being "better in every possible way". A change is called a Pareto improvement if it leaves at least one person in society better off without leaving anyone else worse off than they were before.
EthicsEthics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics. Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act.
Inverse demand functionIn economics, an inverse demand function is the mathematical relationship that expresses price as a function of quantity demanded (it is therefore also known as a price function). Historically, the economists first expressed the price of a good as a function of demand (holding the other economic variables, like income, constant), and plotted the price-demand relationship with demand on the x (horizontal) axis (the demand curve).
Level setIn mathematics, a level set of a real-valued functionf of nreal variables is a set where the function takes on a given constant value c, that is: Lc(f)={(x1,…,xn)∣f(x1,…,xn)=c}.{\displaystyle L_{c}(f)=\left\{(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n})\mid f(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n})=c ight\}~.}When the number of independent variables is two, a level set is called a level curve, also known as contour line or isoline; so a level curve is the set of all real-valued solutions of an equation in two variables x1 and x2.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.