Utility

In economics, utility is a measure of preferences over some set of goods and services. The concept is an important underpinning of rational choice theory in economics and game theory, because it represents satisfaction experienced by the consumer of a good. A good is something that satisfies human wants. Since one cannot directly measure benefit, satisfaction or happiness from a good or service, economists instead have devised ways of representing and measuring utility in terms of economic choices that can be measured. Economists have attempted to perfect highly abstract methods of comparing utilities by observing and calculating economic choices. In the simplest sense, economists consider utility to be revealed in people's willingness to pay different amounts for different goods.

Applications

Utility is usually applied by economists in such constructs as the indifference curve, which plot the combination of commodities that an individual or a society would accept to maintain a given level of satisfaction. Utility and indifference curves are used by economists to understand the underpinnings of demand curves, which are half of the supply and demand analysis that is used to analyze the workings of goods markets.

Marginal utility

In economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the gain from an increase, or loss from a decrease, in the consumption of that good or service. Economists sometimes speak of a law of diminishing marginal utility, meaning that the first unit of consumption of a good or service yields more utility than the second and subsequent units, with a continuing reduction for greater amounts. The marginal decision rule states that a good or service should be consumed at a quantity at which the marginal utility is equal to the marginal cost.

Marginality

The term marginal refers to a small change, starting from some baseline level. As Philip Wicksteed explained the term,

Frequently the marginal change is assumed to start from the endowment, meaning the total resources available for consumption (see Budget constraint). This endowment is determined by many things including physical laws (which constrain how forms of energy and matter may be transformed), accidents of nature (which determine the presence of natural resources), and the outcomes of past decisions made by the individual himself or herself and by others.

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily middle-market newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982. The newspaper ties with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, a distinction it had previously held since 2003. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper had 1.8 million copies as of March 2012 compared with The Wall Street Journal's 2.1 million though the latter figure included the WSJ's 400,000 paid-for, online subscribers. USA Today remains the widest circulated print newspaper in the United States.

USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The newspaper is headquartered in the Tysons Corner, Virginia in Fairfax County.USA Today sells for US $2 at newsstands, although it is often found free at airports and hotels that distribute it to their customers; the paper is also free online.