DISMAL SCIENCE: A term for the study of economics developed during the late 18th and early 19th century when economists concluded that continued population growth would push wages and living standards to a minimal subsistence level and keep them there. It persists to the present time because economics continue to point out that actions result in opportunity cost, that nothing is free, and that eventually society has to pay the price for what it does.

     See also | economic thinking | three questions of allocation | opportunity cost | scarcity | economics | seven economic rules | economic analysis | consumer sovereignty | scarce resource | free resource | political views | four estates | distribution standards | technology | production possibilities | fallacies |

DISMAL SCIENCE, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2010. [Accessed: September 2, 2010].

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Total fixed cost per unit of output, found by dividing total fixed cost by the quantity of output. When compared with price (per unit revenue), average fixed cost (AFC) indicates whether or not a profit-maximizing firm should shutdown production in the short run. Average fixed cost is one of three average cost concepts important to short-run production analysis. The other two are average total cost and average variable cost. A related concept is marginal cost.

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