Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers (at current price) will equal the quantity supplied by producers (at current price), resulting in an economic equilibrium of price and quantity.
The four basic laws of supply and demand are:
- If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, a shortage altogether, thus leads to a higher equilibrium price.
- If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, a surplus altogether, thus leads to a lower equilibrium price.
- If demand remains unchanged and supply increases, a surplus altogether, thus leads to a lower equilibrium price.
- If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases, a shortage altogether, thus leads to a higher equilibrium price.
Read more about Supply And Demand: Graphical Representation of Supply and Demand, Other Markets, Empirical Estimation, Macroeconomic Uses of Demand and Supply, History, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the words supply and/or demand:
“Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual; and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Tragedy dramatizes human life as potentiality and fulfillment. Its virtual future, or Destiny, is therefore quite different from that created in comedy. Comic Destiny is Fortune—what the world will bring, and the man will take or miss, encounter or escape; tragic Destiny is what the man brings, and the world will demand of him. That is his Fate.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)