Supply and Demand
Why did the ticket cost triple the week before the match — and nothing the week after?
Because of one ruleSupply and Demand — explained
Here is the principle, plainly, and then we will make it work: when more people want a thing than there is of it, its price rises. When there is more of it than people want, its price falls. That sentence is not the lesson — it is the through-line. The lesson is watching it hold in places that look nothing like each other.
Worked example — Supply and Demand
One clear case, fully worked
A late frost destroys half the country's apple crop. What happens to the price of apples?
- Ask which side moved: supply or demand?
The frost hit the crop, not people's appetite. Supply fell; demand did not move.
- Fewer apples, the same number of buyers.
Now more people want apples than there are apples.
- So the price rises.
Price is what settles the gap between wanting and having.
AnswerThe price of apples rises.
Examples — Supply and Demand
Now somewhere that looks nothing like an orchard.
Hospitals want more nurses than are available.
Far more flats than people wanting them.
Examples — Supply and Demand
Further out still — no shops, no wages, no money at all.
Many travellers, one shrinking well.
Exactly one of him; many clubs.
The idea — Supply and Demand
Price is where wanting meets having.
You used it on apples, wages, water and a footballer. It will hold on the next thing too.
Questions about Supply and Demand
What happens to price when demand is higher than supply?
When more people want a thing than there is of it, its price rises.
What happens to price when supply is greater than demand?
When there is more of something than people want, its price falls.
Why does apple price rise after a frost destroys half the crop?
The frost reduces supply while demand stays the same, so more people want apples than there are apples, and the price rises.
What is the key idea behind supply and demand?
Price is where wanting meets having — the point that settles the gap between how much people want something and how much of it exists.
You've seen the idea. Now make it stick.
The journey continues in Zeeza — free to start, made to adapt to how you learn.
- Predict what happens next
- Explain it in your own words — and master it
- …and more, adapted to you