Disutility
The opposite or negative of utility. Someone would have to be paid to ‘consume’ a good which yielded disutility or would pay to reduce ‘consumption’ of such a good; e.g. people install double glazing to reduce ‘consumption’ of noise from the road outside, or pay to remove garbage. Similarly, the fact that work tends to yield increasing marginal disutility, the more one does, explains why overtime rates are usually above normal hourly rates of pay.
Reference: The Penguin Dictionary of Economics, 3rd edt.
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