Mary Jane Sudekum, Pharm.D., and Lee C. Vermeulen, M.S. Key Words: therapeutic interchange, guidelines, drug policies, drug. procedures, pharmacy and therapeutics committee, patient care, cost-effective. therapy, American College of Clinical Pharmacy, ACCP, position statement.
The law of diminishing marginal utility is similar to the law of diminishing returns which states that as the amount of one factor of production increases as all other factors of production are held the same, the marginal return (extra output gained by adding an extra unit) decreases.
Marginal utility can then be defined as the first derivative of the total satisfaction obtained from consumption of a good or service, with respect to the amount of consumption of that good or service. In practice the smallest relevant division may be quite large.