Andrew Miller wrote:
I'm not familiar with 'consumer's surplus'. What does it mean?
Peter Spiro replied:
Consumers' surplus exists in markets where all consumers pay the same price for the same good or service. Consumers are all different people, and the good or service X is more important (and hence more valuable) to some people than others. However, in a competitive market, the price is actually determined by what it's worth to the marginal consumer who values it the least. All the other consumers are getting more than their money's worth, so to speak, and this is their surplus.
In non-competitive markets, such as airlines, the company charges more for the same flight to different types of customers, attempting to grab back this surplus. There's an article on the concept at Wikipedia[...]
I like your explanation better: especially with the example, it is easier to understand. Now I wonder:
How can Wikipedia get contributors to make articles less technical and easier for non-experts to understand?
* i.e. add examples? * Or have an initial "easy explanation" section then a later advanced explanation section? * Or what?
Cheers,
How can Wikipedia get contributors to make articles less technical and easier for non-experts to understand?
- i.e. add examples?
- Or have an initial "easy explanation" section then a later advanced
explanation section?
- Or what?
Both would be good. A clear introduction targeted at the layman and plenty of examples of key concepts. We already have the advantage of being able to link to other pages for more complete explanations of related concepts, which can be a great help.
On 1/17/08, Jason Spiro jasonspiro2@gmail.com wrote:
- i.e. add examples?
- Or have an initial "easy explanation" section then a later advanced
explanation section?
- Or what?
Often something like this is good:
In simple terms, consumer's surplus means... ... Strictly speaking, consumer's surplus means that X of Y where ....
Best to start out with an understandable, accurate (but probably slightly imprecise) definition, then get into the nitty gritty later on.
Steve
On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 01:23:56AM +1100, Steve Bennett wrote:
Best to start out with an understandable, accurate (but probably slightly imprecise) definition, then get into the nitty gritty later on.
Our better articles use the lede for this purpose. If you can't read the body of a technical article, but can get a rough idea from the lede, then the article may have achieved its purpose.
There is a tension, when writing technical articles, between helping the naive and the experienced reader, between pedagogical writing and encyclopedic writing, and between repeating information and linking to other articles. We can't expect that the consumer's surplus article, for example, will give a definition of the term economics.
Carl