the highest-valued alternative that must be forgone when a choice is made
The value of an opportunity that is lost or sacrificed when the choice of one course of action requires that another course of action must be given up. A non-accounting value that can be significant in certain circumstances, usually as a consequence of limited resources. It is measured by the profit that could have been generated had the resources been available.
Cost of goods and services that must be given up in order to obtain other goods and services.
the economic value of the use of resources next best to the use to which they are currently assigned
Foregone opportunities are the consequence of having done A rather than B, C, or any of the other alternative courses of action. We never know for sure what those alternative actions might have brought about.
Opportunity cost is the sacrifice of benefits from the next-best alternative that you face when you make a financial or economic decision. For example, say you had $1,000 to invest. You could invest it in a stock mutual fund that might return 20 percent or more. If you make this investment decision, you sacrifice the opportunity to earn a lower rate of return on an investment that has no risk. This might be a CD or other fixed-term deposit that had a 6 percent rate of return. This 6 percent guaranteed return would be the opportunity cost of investing in the mutual fund instead.
Costs determined not by dollar amounts but rather by what was given up in order to purchase the good or service; what was given up generally is considered to be the buyer's next best choice.
The theoretical cost of using your capital for one investment versus another.
Measures the cost of the next best thing that a company has missed out on by choosing an alternative. It may or may not be measured in terms of money (Think of it as the opportunity cost of spending a night studying is going out to the cinema).
The opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative given up. (Example: If a person sells an investment worth $40,000 and earning 8% per year — or $3,200 — to buy a new car, the opportunity cost is $3,200 because that is how much the person gives up by using the investment. Most likely in this situation, the cost of financing the car would be higher than 8% so the buyer might be willing to pay this opportunity cost, compared with paying higher car-loan finance fees.)
The costs of alternatives forgone by using scarce resources in a particular manner.
The difference in the performance of an actual investment and a desired investment adjusted for fixed costs and execution costs. The performance differential is a consequence of not being able to implement all desired trades. Most valuable alternative that is given up.
In the context of microfinance, opportunity costs include the time or anything "forgone" a borrower spends on applying and filling out the paperwork for a loan.
the net revenue that is forgone by not allocating resources to the other best alternative use.