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Meaning of "sunk costs" in the English dictionary

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DICTIONARY
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PRONUNCIATION OF SUNK COSTS

sunk costs  [sʌŋk kɒsts] play
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GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF SUNK COSTS

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation
Sunk costs is a noun.
A noun is a type of word the meaning of which determines reality. Nouns provide the names for all things: people, objects, sensations, feelings, etc.

WHAT DOES SUNK COSTS MEAN IN ENGLISH?

sunk costs

Sunk costs

In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a retrospective cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken. Both retrospective and prospective costs may be either fixed or variable costs. Sherman notes, however, that many economists consider it a mistake to classify sunk costs as "fixed" or "variable." For example, if a firm sinks $1 million on an enterprise software installation, that cost is "sunk" because it was a one-time expense and cannot be recovered once spent. A "fixed" cost would be monthly payments made as part of a service contract or licensing deal with the company that set up the software. The upfront irretrievable payment for the installation should not be deemed a "fixed" cost, with its cost spread out over time. Sunk costs should be kept separate. The "variable costs" for this project might include data centre power usage, etc. In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective costs are relevant to an investment decision.

Definition of sunk costs in the English dictionary

The definition of sunk costs in the dictionary is retrospective costs which have been incurred and cannot be recovered.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH SUNK COSTS


chemist´s
ˈkemɪsts
costs
kɒsts
druggist´s
ˈdrʌɡɪsts
firsts
fɜːsts
florist´s
ˈflɒrɪsts
interests
ˈɪntrəsts
lists
lɪsts
oncosts
ˈɒnˌkɒsts
wastes
weɪsts

WORDS THAT BEGIN LIKE SUNK COSTS

sung
Sungari
sungazing
Sungkiang
sunglass
sunglasses
sunglow
sungrebe
sunhat
sunk
sunk fence
sunken
sunket
sunkie
sunland
sunless
sunlessly
sunlessness
sunlight
sunlike

WORDS THAT END LIKE SUNK COSTS

bill of costs
fixed costs
general costs
indirect costs
labour costs
legal costs
Lord of Hosts
maintenance costs
move the goalposts
overhead costs
postage costs
production costs
relocation costs
running costs
salvage costs
start-up costs
warehousing costs

Synonyms and antonyms of sunk costs in the English dictionary of synonyms

SYNONYMS

Translation of «sunk costs» into 25 languages

TRANSLATOR
online translator

TRANSLATION OF SUNK COSTS

Find out the translation of sunk costs to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.
The translations of sunk costs from English to other languages presented in this section have been obtained through automatic statistical translation; where the essential translation unit is the word «sunk costs» in English.

Translator English - Chinese

沉没成本
1,325 millions of speakers

Translator English - Spanish

costos hundidos
570 millions of speakers

English

sunk costs
510 millions of speakers

Translator English - Hindi

डूब लागत
380 millions of speakers
ar

Translator English - Arabic

التكاليف الثابتة
280 millions of speakers

Translator English - Russian

невозвратные издержки
278 millions of speakers

Translator English - Portuguese

custos irrecuperáveis
270 millions of speakers

Translator English - Bengali

ঘুমানোর খরচ
260 millions of speakers

Translator English - French

coûts irrécupérables
220 millions of speakers

Translator English - Malay

Kos tenggelam
190 millions of speakers

Translator English - German

versunkene Kosten
180 millions of speakers

Translator English - Japanese

埋没費用
130 millions of speakers

Translator English - Korean

매몰 비용
85 millions of speakers

Translator English - Javanese

Nyedhot biaya
85 millions of speakers
vi

Translator English - Vietnamese

chi phí chìm
80 millions of speakers

Translator English - Tamil

செலவுகளை மூழ்கடித்தது
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Marathi

निथळ खर्च
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Turkish

Battı maliyetler
70 millions of speakers

Translator English - Italian

costi irrecuperabili
65 millions of speakers

Translator English - Polish

poniesione koszty
50 millions of speakers

Translator English - Ukrainian

неповоротні витрати
40 millions of speakers

Translator English - Romanian

costuri irecuperabile
30 millions of speakers
el

Translator English - Greek

εφάπαξ κόστος
15 millions of speakers
af

Translator English - Afrikaans

gesink koste
14 millions of speakers
sv

Translator English - Swedish

icke återvinningsbara kostnader
10 millions of speakers
no

Translator English - Norwegian

ugjenkallelige kostnader
5 millions of speakers

Trends of use of sunk costs

TRENDS

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «SUNK COSTS»

The term «sunk costs» is regularly used and occupies the 81.917 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.
0
100%
FREQUENCY
Regularly used
62
/100
The map shown above gives the frequency of use of the term «sunk costs» in the different countries.
Principal search tendencies and common uses of sunk costs
List of principal searches undertaken by users to access our English online dictionary and most widely used expressions with the word «sunk costs».

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «SUNK COSTS» OVER TIME

The graph expresses the annual evolution of the frequency of use of the word «sunk costs» during the past 500 years. Its implementation is based on analysing how often the term «sunk costs» appears in digitalised printed sources in English between the year 1500 and the present day.

Examples of use in the English literature, quotes and news about sunk costs

EXAMPLES

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «SUNK COSTS»

Discover the use of sunk costs in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to sunk costs and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.
1
Sunk Costs and Market Structure: Price Competition, ...
" -- Jean Tirole, MIT "Sunk Costs and Market Structure" bridges the gap between the new generation of game-theoretic models, which have dominated the industrial organization literature over the past ten years, and the traditional empirical ...
John Sutton, 1991
2
Accounting: Concepts and Applications
sunk costs Either past costs, such as already-purchased equipment, or unchangeable future costs, such as committed lease payments, that do not change as the result of a future decision. differential costs Future costs that change as a result of ...
W. Albrecht, James Stice, Earl Stice, 2007
3
微观经济学原理(第2版)(清华经济学系列英文版教材):
As a practical matter, however, many decision makers appear to be influenced by sunk costs — costs that are beyond recovery at the moment a decision is made. For example, money spent on a nontransferable, nonrefundable airline ticket is ...
Robert H. Frank, Ben Bernanke, 2003
4
Essentials of Cost Accounting for Health Care Organizations
SUNK COSTS ARE IRRELEVANT Suppose that you buy a piece of laboratory equipment for $100,000 to perform a certain test. The equipment can do 100,000 tests over its useful life. Suppose further that the other costs directly associated ...
Steven A. Finkler, David Marc Ward, Judith J. Baker, 2007
5
An Empirical Model of Sunk Costs and the Decision to Export
The second column restricts the interaction terms with YM to equal zero, implying sunk costs do not vary over time. The t'jrd column restricts the coefficents on Yu_2 and Yk_3 to equal zero, implying that the sunk costs of eatry are the same for ...
Mark J. Roberts, James R. Tybout
6
Economic Evaluation of Projects in the Electricity Supply ...
6.3 Sunk costs Sunk costs are defined as those costs that have been incurred on the project, before commencing the present evaluation. Despite their value to the project, they have already been spent. Therefore, they are not included in the ...
Hisham Khatib, 2003
7
Management Accounting in Health Care Organizations
One of the most difficult aspects of differential cost analysis concerns the role of sunk costs. Because alternative choice decisions always look toward the future, full-cost analyses—which typically rely on historical data—have some serious ...
David W. Young, 2004
8
Principles of Economics
Because nothing can be done about sunk costs, you can ignore them when making decisions about various aspects of life, including business strategy. Our analysis of the firm's shutdown decision is one example of the irrelevance of sunk  ...
N. Mankiw, 2011
9
The Evolution of the US Airline Industry: Theory, Strategy ...
It is this asymmetrical impact of sunk costs on an entrant in comparison to an incumbent that impedes competition and may push the market toward monopoly. Baumol (2002) has modified the traditional contestable markets idea to account for ...
Eldad Ben-Yosef, 2005
10
Understanding Financial Management: A Practical Guide
Practical Financial Tip 7.3 All relevant cash flows are future cash flows so forget sunk costs. Sunk costs are similar to spilled milk: they are past and irreversible outflows. Because sunk costs are historical costs, they should not affect the ...
H. Kent Baker, Gary Powell, 2009

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «SUNK COSTS»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term sunk costs is used in the context of the following news items.
1
Victoria budget 2015: East West Link sunk costs $1b, says Ken …
The Victorian government's sunk costs for the abandoned East West Link project total as much as a billion dollars, new figures disclosed by Ken Mathers, the ... «The Australian Financial Review, May 15»
2
Oversight Report: Idaho Schoolnet 'Sunk Costs of $61 Million …
It's officially called Idaho's Instructional Management System, but it's more commonly known as Schoolnet, a suite of online tools initially designed to give Idaho ... «Boise Weekly, Mar 15»
3
The D.C. trolley folly: nothing to lose but your fixed rails --- and sunk
At a much more modest cost. Yes, I like the ... I say, repent. You have nothing to lose but your fixed rails—and, as she notes, some $200 million in sunk costs. «Washington Examiner, Mar 15»
4
Highway 99 tunnel: Think about sunk cost
The Times needs to think about the business concept of sunk cost: ... Sunk costs are past opportunity costs that are partially (as salvage, if any) or totally ... «The Seattle Times, Dec 14»
5
Use Sunk Costs to Your Advantage to Promote Healthy Habits
As personal finance blog Done by Forty explains, sunk costs keep you in a pattern even when you might otherwise stop. For something like fixing a car that's no ... «Lifehacker, Oct 14»
6
In Montana, Sunk Candidate Is Sunk Cost
Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) dropped his reelection bid amid a plagiarism scandal — leaving those who had banked on his victory to contemplate their sunk costs ... «Center for Responsive Politics, Aug 14»
7
Sunk Costs: New Carriers Commit UK To Buy Escorts & F-35Bs …
Economists might call this a “sunk cost” argument (a distinctly disturbing term in the naval context). So Prime Minister David Cameron may well decide in the ... «Breaking Defense, Aug 14»
8
The CIA and the Moral Sunk Costs of the Torture Program
This is a tale of moral sunk costs, and how people react when they've sold their souls and realize that they won't even get paid what they bargained for. «The American Prospect, Apr 14»
9
VanRoekel: Don't Let Sunk Costs Sink Innovation
Take a customer-centeric approach. Don't let sunk costs or sunk culture define the way forward. "This is an all hands on deck effort," VanRoekel said, noting that ... «Nextgov, Feb 14»
10
How Failing to Recognize Sunk Costs Keeps Us Stuck in Bad …
But when it comes to to sunk costs, our instinctive opposition to "wasting money" we've already lost can hurt us in many ways. In investing specifically, it can ... «DailyFinance, Jan 14»

REFERENCE
« EDUCALINGO. Sunk costs [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/sunk-costs>. May 2024 ».
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