Question

Mylie's total utility from singing the same song over and over is as shown in the table below. a. Write down her marginal utility for each repetition. Instructions: Enter your answers as whole numbers. If you are entering any negative numbers be sure to include a negative sign (-) In front of those numbers. Total Utility Marginal Utility 70 2 110 3 140 4 100 b. Once Mylle's total utility begins to decrease, does each additional singing of the song hurt more than the previous one or less than the previous one? (Click to select)

Answer 1

a) Marginal utility gives the change in utility when 1 additional unit of a commodity is consumed. In the given example, the calculated marginal utility is given below.

Repetitions	Total Utility	Marginal utility
1	70
2	110	40
3	140	30
4	100	-40
5	40	-60
6	-40	-80

b) With each additional singing of the song after the total utility starts to decrease, the marginal utility decreases by a constant amount (20 units). For each additional singing, the marginal disutility is 20. Thus each singing hurts the same.