Opportunity cost意思

"Opportunity cost" is an economic term that refers to the potential benefit that an individual, investor, or business misses out on when choosing one alternative over another. It is the value of the best alternative forgone, in a situation where a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive options. The opportunity cost of a decision is the "cost" incurred by not taking the next best alternative.

For example, if you choose to spend $100 on a movie ticket, the opportunity cost would be the value of the next best thing you could have bought with that $100. If the next best thing you could have bought was a $90 dress, the opportunity cost of the movie ticket would be $90.

In the context of business and finance, opportunity cost is a key concept in decision-making. It helps to evaluate the potential benefits of different options and choose the one that maximizes value. For example, a company might choose to invest in a new piece of equipment that will increase productivity. The opportunity cost of this investment would be the potential returns from other investments that the company could have made with the same money.

Opportunity cost is a fundamental concept in microeconomics and is used to analyze the efficiency of resource allocation. It is a key factor in the theory of the firm and is used to explain why firms operate where they do on their production possibilities frontier.