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In economics, an excess supply, economic surplus [1] market surplus or briefly supply is a situation in which the quantity of a good or service supplied is more than the quantity demanded, [2] and the price is above the equilibrium level determined by supply and demand. That is, the quantity of the product that producers wish to sell exceeds ...
Producer surplus, or producers' surplus, is the amount that producers benefit by selling at a market price that is higher than the least that they would be willing to sell for; this is roughly equal to profit (since producers are not normally willing to sell at a loss and are normally indifferent to selling at a break-even price).
The equilibrium price in the market is $5.00 where demand and supply are equal at 12,000 units; If the current market price was $3.00 – there would be excess demand for 8,000 units, creating a shortage. If the current market price was $8.00 – there would be excess supply of 12,000 units.
The market must experience a shortage or a surplus to reach this state. A shortage indicates that buyers are interested in purchasing something, but need help to afford to do so at current prices. Conversely, a surplus occurs when there is an excess product beyond the quantity that buyers are willing to purchase at current prices.
When technological progress occurs, the supply curve shifts. For example, assume that someone invents a better way of growing wheat so that the cost of growing a given quantity of wheat decreases. Otherwise stated, producers will be willing to supply more wheat at every price and this shifts the supply curve S 1 outward, to S 2 —an increase ...
When this occurs, economic agents outside the industry find no advantage to entering the market, as there is no economic profit to be gained. Then, the supply of the product stops increasing, and the price charged for the product stabilizes, settling into an equilibrium. [7] [8] [9]
[1] [2] In economic terminology, a shortage occurs when for some reason (such as government intervention, or decisions by sellers not to raise prices) the price does not rise to reach equilibrium. In this circumstance, buyers want to purchase more at the market price than the quantity of the good or service that is available, and some non-price ...
Karl Marx outlined the inherent tendency of capitalism towards overproduction in his seminal work Das Kapital.. According to Marx, in capitalism, improvements in technology and rising levels of productivity increase the amount of material wealth (or use values) in society while simultaneously diminishing the economic value of this wealth, thereby lowering the rate of profit—a tendency that ...