「釋義」

消費者剩余是指消費者消費一定數(shù)量的某種商品愿意支付的最高價格與這些商品的實際市場價格之間的差額。消費者剩余衡量了買者自己感覺到所獲得的額外利益。

馬歇爾從邊際效用價值論演繹出消費者剩余的概念。消費者剩余是衡量消費者福利的重要指標(biāo)。產(chǎn)業(yè)的社會福利等于消費者剩余加上生產(chǎn)者剩余之和。

「應(yīng)用場景」

GDP通常作為衡量經(jīng)濟的指標(biāo)，無論經(jīng)濟增長還是萎縮，GDP都是每季度相對準(zhǔn)確的指標(biāo)。然而，GDP捕捉的僅是經(jīng)濟中所有最終產(chǎn)品的貨幣價格。因為它衡量的僅僅是我們付出多少，而不是我們受益多少，所以消費者的經(jīng)濟福利可能與GDP并無關(guān)聯(lián)。實際上，有時GDP上升，消費者福利反而下降，反之亦然。

GDP is often used as a proxy for how the economy is doing. It’s a relatively precise number that signals every quarter whether the economy is growing or shrinking. However, GDP captures only the monetary value of all final goods produced in the economy. Because it measures only how much we pay for things, not how much we benefit, consumer’s economic well-being may not be correlated with GDP. In fact, it sometimes falls when GDP goes up, and vice versa.

好消息是，至少從理論上看，依然有辦法衡量經(jīng)濟上的消費者福利。這種方法被稱為消費者剩余，即消費者愿意為某產(chǎn)品或服務(wù)支付的最高價格，與產(chǎn)品服務(wù)實際銷售價格之差。如果你最多愿意付100美元購買一件襯衫，但只花了40美元，你的消費者剩余就是60美元。

The good news is that economics does provide a way, at least in theory, to measure consumer well-being. That measure is called consumer surplus, which is the difference between the maximum a consumer would be willing to pay for a good or service and its price. If you would have spent as much as $100 for a shirt but paid only $40, then you have a $60 consumer surplus.

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以上文字選自《哈佛商業(yè)評論》中文版2019年12月刊《如何衡量數(shù)字經(jīng)濟？》

埃里克·布萊恩約弗森（Erik Brynjolfsson）阿維納什·克里斯（Avinash Collis）丨文

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