Value

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 = Benefits / Price
:::or alternatively:
::Value = Quality received / Expectations

Economics

In neoclassical economics, the value of an object or service is often seen as nothing but the price it would bring in an open and competitive market. This is determined primarily by the demand for the object relative to supply. Other economists often simply equate the value of a commodity with its price, whether or not the market is competitive.

In classical economics, price and value were not seen as equal. In this tradition, to Steve Keen "value" refers to "the innate worth of a commodity, which determines the normal ('equilibrium') ratio a which two commodities exchange." (Debunking Economics, p. 271, ISBN 1-86403-070-4.) To Keen and the tradition of David Ricardo, this corresponds to the classical concept of long-run cost-determined prices, what Adam Smith called "natural prices" and Karl Marx called "prices of production." It is part of a cost-of-production theory of value and price. Ricardo, but not Keen, used a "labor theory of price" in which a commodity's "innate worth" was the amount of labor needed to produce it.

In another classical tradition, Marx distinguished between the "value in use" (use-value, what a commodity provides to its buyer), "value" (the socially-necessary labour time it embodies), and "exchange value" (how much labor-time the sale of the commodity can claim, Smith's "labor commanded" value). By most interpretations of his labor theory of value, Marx, like Ricardo, developed a "labor theory of price" where the point of analyzing value was to allow the calculation of relative prices. Others see values as part of his sociopolitical interpretation and critique of capitalism and other societies, and deny that it was intended to serve as a category of economics.

Economists such as Ludwig von Mises asserted that "value" was always a subjective quality. That there was no value implicit in objects or things and that value derived entirely from the psychology of market participants.

The theory of value is closely related to that of allocative efficiency, the quality by which firms produce those goods and services most valued by society. The market value of a machine part, for example, will depend upon a variety of objective facts involving its efficiency versus the efficiency of other types of part or other types of machine to make the kind of products that consumers will value in turn. In such a case, market value has both objective and subjective components.

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.

Law

At common law, certain transferrable obligations were only enforceable if the transferee had acquired them for value. Under the rules of equity, the rights of a bona fide purchaser for value would not be interfered with. State courts of various jurisdictions in the US adopted varying definitions of what constituted "value".

Under the Uniform Commercial Code, except with respect to Article 3, a person gives value for rights if he acquires them in exchange for: