Cost

In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something, and hence is not available for use anymore.A cost is also what Mr Gray is failing on producing for his fellow Vader, forgetfulness or Jealousy on the oche either way a quote for another day Mr James. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this case, money is the input that is gone in order to acquire the thing.

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• True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
  • Arthur Ashe As quoted in Worth Repeating : More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (2003) by Bob Kelly, p. 169

• There are in the Exhibition some beautiful examples of such lace amongst the productions of other countries as well as of our own. They are made by the united labour of many women. The cost of a piece of lace will consist of:

1. The remuneration to the artist who designs the pattern.
2. The cost of the raw material.
3. The cost of the labour of a large number of women working on it for many months.

Let us compare this with the cost of a piece of statuary, which is undoubtedly of a much higher class of art ; it will consist of:

1. The remuneration to the artist who makes the model.
2. The cost of the raw material.
3. The cost of labour, by assistants in cutting the block to the pattern of the model.
4. Finishing the statue by the artist himself.

In lace making the skill of the artist is required only for the production of the first example. Every succeeding copy is made by mere labour: each copy may be considered as an individual, and will cost the same amount of time.

In sculpture the three first processes are quite analogous to those in lace-making. But the fourth process requires the taste and judgment of the artist. It is this which causes it to retain its rank amongst the fine arts, whilst lacemaking must still be classed amongst the industrial.

• Charles Babbage, The Exposition of 1851: Views Of The Industry, The Science, and the Government Of England, 1851. p. 49-50

• Markets are institutions that exist to facilitate exchange, that is, they exist in order to reduce the cost of carrying out exchange transactions. In an economic theory which assumes that transaction costs are nonexistent. markets have no function to perform, and it seems perfectly reasonable to develop the theory of exchange by an elaborate analysis of individuals exchanging nuts for apples on the edge of the forest or some similar fanciful example. This analysis certainly shows why there is a gain from trade, but it fails to deal with the factors which determine how much trade there is or what goods are traded.
  • Ronald Coase The Firm, the Market and the Law (1988)

• Quality means meeting customers' (agreed) requirements, formal and informal, at lowest cost, first time every time.
  • Robert L. Flood (1993) Beyond TQM. p. 42.

• Low cost relative to competitors becomes the theme running through the entire strategy, though quality, service and other areas cannot be ignored.
  • Michael E. Porter, Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors (1980). p. 35

• Microeconomics, including the study of individual choice and of group choice in market and nonmarket processes, has generally been considered a field science as distinct from an experimental science. Hence microeconomics has sometimes been classified as "non-experimental" and closer methodologically to meteorology and astronomy than to physics and experimental psychology... But the question of using experimental or nonexperimental techniques is largely a matter of cost, and generally the cost of conducting the most ambitious and informative experiments in astronomy, meteorology, and economics varies from prohibitive down to considerable. The cost of experimenting with different solar system planetary arrangements, different atmospheric conditions, and different national unemployment rates, each under suitable controls, must be regarded as prohibitive.
  • Vernon L. Smith, "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory." Evaluation of Econometric Models. Academic Press, 1980. 345-377. p. 345.'

• The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
  • Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) p. 128.

• It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community.
  • Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership (1923) p. 191.

• It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price...One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing.
  • Morris West, in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963)

• Accounting
• Costs in English law
• Cost of labour
• Opportunity cost
• Transaction cost

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Cost