Each additional unit of input eventually yields less output.
Turgot's 1767 statement, and the most robust regularity in production economics. Adding fertiliser raises yield, then raises it less, then poisons the crop.
In practice
- A field yields more with the first hundred kilos of fertiliser, less with the second, and less again with the third.
- A support team improves resolution times markedly with the second member, slightly with the fifth, and not at all with the ninth.
- Subject
- Economics & Incentives
- Essay
- The regularities money obeys