Supply and demand

Because of their importance to the development of economic theory, an appreciation of the significance of the concepts of supply and demand is essential to the understanding of much of the subject-matter of economics. This article seeks to explain their significance in non-technical terms, as well as introducing the lay reader to some of the associated terminology used by economists and providing a simple introduction to the concepts for students of economics.

The definitions of the terms used in italics can be found on the Related Articles subpage, and a selection of the diagrams and mathematical equations that are conventionally used for teaching purposes can be found on the Tutorials subpage