Diminishing marginal returns
phenomenon in which greater input of effort, money, etc. yields smaller results. Crucial part of the idea is that if you're using x to get y results (where y is the thing you want). then additional input a will yield additional results b, but not in the same proportion as before.On average, before, you put in x to get y, so your yield was y/x. But if you increase x by amount a, then your results will be y + b, where(y + b)/(x + a) < y/xand this will only get worse.
Diminishing marginal returns (
DMR) is used to explain why the supply curve in economics slopes upward, i.e., increasing the quantity supplied requires an increased price of most things.Sometimes DMR is more than offset by "
economies of scale," which allows more of a thing to be supplied more cheaply than a small amount.