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Value is worth or quality. In a more general sense, a value is a belief or an attitude towards something. The word value has different
meanings in many different fields.
Marketing
In marketing, the value of a product is the consumer's expectations of product quality in relation to the actual amount paid for it. It is often expressed as the
equation:
-
- Value = Quality received / Price
- or alternatively:
- Value = Quality received / Expectations
Economics
In economics, the value of an object or service is the price
it would bring in a fair, open market; the item's "buying power". This buying power is determined primarily by the demand for the
object relative to supply.
Intrinsic value is value which is inherent in an
object: A gold coin has intrinsic value because of
the gold it contains. Even if its issuing authority (such as a government) were to fail to honor the coin's value, it would
retain the its properties that make it valuable, such as being shiny, malleble, and pretty.
Extrinsic value is value which arises because of
an agreement: Although the intrinsic value of a €100 note is not much more
than the value of any similar piece of paper with a pretty picture on it, it has a practical value (an extrinsic value) of
€100. If its issuing authority were to fail to honor the note's value, it would soon become nearly worthless. This happened
recently with the Argentinian peso.
However the lack of support from an issuing authority does not guarantee the collapse in value of such paper currency. A
recent example from Iraq illustrates the point. Following the American invasion of 2003 the government of Saddam Hussein was deposed. The Iraqi Dinar was without the support of an issuing authority and the Americans specifically and publicly stated that they
would not guarantee the value of the Iraqi Dinar. However despite this fact the Iraqi Dinar rapidly appreciated in international
markets and nearly double in value in less than a week, despite being an historically soft currency. Scarcity is frequently a
sufficient quality to ensure continued market or even improved market value.
See also: Anthropological
theories of value and fair value for more general discussions of economic
value.
Computer science
In computer science, a value may be a number, literal string, array and anything that can be treated as if it were a number. The exact definition of a value
varies across programming languages. For more, see value (computer science).
Mathematics
In mathematics, a value is a quantitative value - a
constant (number), or a variable.
Personal and cultural values
Each individual has a set of beliefs and ideas about general concepts that
are called values. They describe how much value a person places on various ideas, objects, or beliefs. Societies
have values that are shared between many of the participants in that culture.
The study of personal and cultural values is typically called axiology. These
values can be grouped into four categories:
- Ethics (good, bad, moral, immoral, amoral)
- Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)
- Doctrine (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs and values)
- Inborn (inborn values such as reproduction and survival, a controversial issue)
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