An ordinary good is a microeconomic concept used in consumer theory. It is defined as a good which creates increased demand when the price for the good drops or conversely decreased demand if the price for the good increases, ceteris paribus. It is the opposite of a Giffen good.
Since the existence of Giffen goods outside the realm of economic theory is still contested, the pairing of Giffen goods with ordinary goods has gotten less traction in economics textbooks than the pairing normal good/inferior good used to distinguish responses to income changes. The usage of "ordinary good" is still useful since it allows a simple representation of price and income changes. A normal good is always ordinary, while an ordinary good can be either normal or inferior.
Read more about Ordinary Good: Distinction Between Income and Price Effects
Famous quotes containing the word ordinary:
“But alas! I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)