Economics Atlas

How Wealth Is Ordered
Concepts

Consumer Surplus

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Consumer surplus is the monetary gain a buyer receives when the price actually paid for a good is lower than the highest price the buyer would have been willing to pay for it, measured as the area beneath the demand curve and above the market price. Alfred Marshall popularized the concept in his Principles of Economics, building on earlier work by the engineer Jules Dupuit, and it remains the standard measure economists use to express how much value a market delivers to buyers rather than sellers.

Facts
Field
Microeconomics 1
Proposed By
Alfred Marshall 1
The engineer Jules Dupuit first proposed the underlying idea in the mid-1840s; Marshall's 1890 Principles of Economics gave it the name and the fame it carries in economics.
Origin Year
1890 1
Year of Marshall's Principles of Economics, which named and popularized the concept; Dupuit's own priority dates to the 1840s.
Cross-Tradition Connections

Attributed To

Source Principles of EconomicsAlfred Marshall
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationEconomic surplus
Quote, Economic surplus
Consumer surplus...is the monetary gain obtained by consumers
View the Source
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationOverview section
Quote, Overview section
In the mid-19th century, engineer Jules Dupuit first propounded the concept of economic surplus, but it was the economist Alfred Marshall who gave the concept its fame in the field of economics.
View the Source
Principles of Economics
Alfred Marshall, Macmillan, 1890Attributed To: Alfred Marshall, Book III, Chapter VI
Quote, Attributed To: Alfred Marshall, Book III, Chapter VI
Marshall popularized consumer surplus in his Principles of Economics, building on the engineer Jules Dupuit's earlier work.
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