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Concept
Deadweight loss
Summary
In economics, deadweight loss is the difference in production and consumption of any given product or service including government tax. The presence of deadweight loss is most commonly identified when the quantity produced relative to the amount consumed differs in regards to the optimal concentration of surplus. This difference in the amount reflects the quantity that is not being utilized or consumed and thus resulting in a loss. This "deadweight loss" is therefore attributed to both producers and consumers because neither one of them benefits from the surplus of the overall production.
Deadweight loss can also be a measure of lost economic efficiency when the socially optimal quantity of a good or a service is not produced. Non-optimal production can be caused by monopoly pricing in the case of artificial scarcity, a positive or negative externality, a tax or subsidy, or a binding price ceiling or price floor such as a minimum wage.
Assume a market for nails where the cost of each nail is 1.10 or higher. The price of 0.10, and every customer whose marginal benefit exceeds 0.60 per nail, thus excluding every customer from the market with a marginal benefit less than 0.10 and $0.60 per nail. The monopolist has "priced them out of the market", even though their benefit exceeds the true cost per nail.
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Related concepts (16)
Externality
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either consumer or producer market transactions. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example. The cost of air pollution to society is not paid by either the producers or users of motorized transport to the rest of society. Water pollution from mills and factories is another example.
Economic surplus
In mainstream economics, economic surplus, also known as total welfare or total social welfare or Marshallian surplus (after Alfred Marshall), is either of two related quantities: Consumer surplus, or consumers' surplus, is the monetary gain obtained by consumers because they are able to purchase a product for a price that is less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay.
Economic efficiency
In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts: Allocative or Pareto efficiency: any changes made to assist one person would harm another. Productive efficiency: no additional output of one good can be obtained without decreasing the output of another good, and production proceeds at the lowest possible average total cost. These definitions are not equivalent: a market or other economic system may be allocatively but not productively efficient, or productively but not allocatively efficient.