Talk:Diminishing returns

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application of term outside of economics

The law of Diminishing Returns can arguably apply(in both psychosocial and economic senses) to technological progress over time and to increasing social complexity. -Agreed. I have added how it can be explained outside of economic theory. ValTee28 (talk) 04:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC) Zara[reply]

Very bad sign: rerouted here from "increasing returns"

I was rerouted here from a page on Economist Brian Arthur. I had been reading about his ideas in a book by Economist Douglass North. I wanted to learn more about increasing returns and its implications. I found quite the opposite. I was back in Econ 101-land. This re-route is a bad sign. If North is a laureate and his ideas, and the ideas of economists who influenced him (which helped him win the prize) are not being represented, then the WikiProject Economics thing is not doing its job, eh? Or is it the job of the project to redirect people away from ideas that clearly show flaws in orthodoxy. If that isn't the purpose, this makes it feel that way. 32TWMV 21:14, 2 March 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samueldee (talk • contribs)

I agree, I was also redirected, and I'd support diminishing returns having it's own page. Or at least a more major section in this article.

098oik (talk) 12:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise! BemusedObserver (talk) 10:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Syntax

This is such a poorly written article. The order of words in just about every sentence is weird and confusing and needs to be completely written. I would do this myself but I don't know what any sentence is trying to say. Nachopath (talk) 10:56, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example from the article:

There were some common examples in this concept. For example, social media marketing. When we attempt that using social media marketing will double the profits, however, there could be a chance for great amount of information that published out to public and caused decreasing in profits. In this situation, marketing department should adjust the other variables which were the social media channels they have used, monitoring and analysing.

Nachopath (talk) 11:00, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best to re-write it a bit and delete the completely nonsensical stuff. It still needs more work; I think it's mainly the History section that needs attention. I didn't check for factual inaccuracies.

098oik (talk) 12:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ceteris paribus is jargon

I won't edit (not my area), but ceteris paribus is a jargon that puts off the non-initiated. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should be accessible to the non-specialist educated reader. I suggest the latin expression be changed to "all other things being equal" or the like. Please keep Wikipedia readable; don't let economy get to the unintelligibility of statistics pages... Vmkern (talk) 15:00, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong (non-canonical) definition of diminishing returns

Ultimately diminishing (marginal) returns refers to a concave portion of a production curve. Said another way, it's a situation where the marginal return is decreasing as the input increases. That's the canonical definition, and the one described in the article's opening.

Later in the article, there's a mathematical definition given which is quite different: there diminishing returns is defined as the marginal return being less than 1! The factory floor example (hiring more labour) is also describing this non-canonical and incompatible sense of diminishing returns. BemusedObserver (talk) 10:36, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]