UTILITY: The satisfaction of wants and needs obtained from the use or consumption of goods and services. The terms utility and satisfaction are, for the most part, used interchangeably in economics. Two other somewhat technical economic terms frequently used to capture this notion are welfare and well-being. Whichever term is used, the underlying concept is the same: To what extent are unlimited wants and needs fulfilled using the goods and services produced from society's limited resources.

     See also | satisfaction | consumption | wants | needs | unlimited wants and needs | welfare | consumer demand theory | law of demand | scarcity | util | utility maximization |

UTILITY, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: January 14, 2026].

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The change in the quantity of total product resulting from a unit change in a variable input, holding all other inputs fixed. Marginal returns is an older and more generic term for marginal product. While marginal product has largely replaced marginal returns in most discussions of short-run production, the phrase does persist in a few terms like the law of diminishing marginal returns.

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