Supply (economics)
In economics, supply is the amount of something that firms, consumers, laborers, providers of financial assets, or other economic agents are willing to provide to the marketplace. Supply is often plotted graphically with the quantity provided (the dependent variable) plotted horizontally and the price (the independent variable) plotted vertically.
In the goods market, supply is the amount of a product per unit of time that producers are willing to sell at various given prices when all other factors are held constant. In the labor market, the supply of labor is the amount of time per week, month, or year that individuals are willing to spend working, as a function of the wage rate. In the financial markets, the money supply is the amount of highly liquid assets available in the money market, which is either determined or influenced by a country's monetary authority.
The remainder of this article focuses on the supply of goods.
Supply schedule
A supply schedule is a table which shows how much one or more firms will be willing to supply at particular prices under the existing circumstances. Some of the more important factors affecting supply are the good's own price, the prices of related goods, production costs, technology and expectations of sellers.