this for Ms Phan’s marginal benefit curve in Figure 6.5 "The Marginal Benefit Curve and Total Benefit"; notice that the areas of the rectangles closely approximate the area under the curve They still “stick out” from either side of the curve as did the rectangles we drew in Figure 6.4 "The Benefits and Costs of Studying Economics", but you almost need a magnifying glass to see that The smaller the interval we choose, the closer the areas under the marginal benefit and marginal cost curves will be to total benefit and total cost For purposes of our model, we can imagine that the intervals are as small as we like Over a particular range of quantity, the area under a marginal benefit curve equals the total benefit of that quantity, and the area under the marginal cost curve equals the total cost of that quantity Figure 6.5 The Marginal Benefit Curve and Total Benefit When the increments used to measure time allocated to studying economics are made smaller, in this case 12 minutes instead of whole hours, the area under the marginal benefit curve is closer to the total benefit of studying that amount of time Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 305