In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are contrasted with prospective costs, which are future costs that may be avoided if action is taken. In other words, a sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future. Even though economists argue that sunk costs are no longer relevant to future rational decision-making, people in everyday life often take previous expenditures in situations, such as repairing a car or house, into their future decisions regarding those properties.
The sunk cost fallacy has also been called the "Concorde fallacy": the British and French governments took their past expenses on the costly supersonic jet as a rationale for continuing the project, as opposed to "cutting their losses".
Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli psychologist known for his work in behavioral economics and studies of rationality in economics
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics focuses on the study of individual markets, sectors, or industries as opposed to the national economy as a whole, which is studied in macroeconomics.
Microeconomics analyzes the market mechanisms that enable buyers and sellers to establish relative prices among goods and services. Shown is a marketplace in Delhi.
United States Capitol Building: meeting place of the United States Congress, where many tax laws are passed, which directly impact economic welfare. This is studied in the subject of public economics.
