chooses might provide him with a great deal of utility—perhaps they help him get to a job interview or a

doctor’s appointment. However, later bus rides might provide much less utility—they may only serve to kill

time on a rainy day. Similarly, the first burger that Alphonso chooses to buy may be on a day when he missed

breakfast and is ravenously hungry. However, if Alphonso has multiple burgers every day, the last few burgers

may taste pretty boring. The general pattern that consumption of the first few units of any good tends to bring

a higher level of utility to a person than consumption of later units is a common pattern. Economists refer to

this pattern as the law of diminishing marginal utility, which means that as a person receives more of a good,

the additional (or marginal) utility from each additional unit of the good declines. In other words, the first slice

of pizza brings more satisfaction than the sixth.
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