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.

The law of diminishing marginal utility explains why people and societies rarely make all-or-nothing choices.

You would not say, “My favorite food is ice cream, so I will eat nothing but ice cream from now on.” Instead,

even if you get a very high level of utility from your favorite food, if you ate it exclusively, the additional or

marginal utility from those last few servings would not be very high. Similarly, most workers do not say: “I

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2.2 • The Production Possibilities Frontier and Social Choices 33

enjoy leisure, so I’ll never work.” Instead, workers recognize that even though some leisure is very nice, a

combination of all leisure and no income is not so attractive. The budget constraint framework suggests that
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