UNIT 6 Economic Equilibrium

A condition or state in which economic forces are balanced. These economic variables will be unchanged from their equilibrium values in the absence of external influences. Economic equilibrium may also be defined as the point where supply equals demand for a product – the equilibrium price is where the hypothetical supply and demand curves intersect.

The term “economic equilibrium” can also be applied to any number of variables, such as the interest rate that allows for the greatest growth of the banking and non-financial sector.

Economic equilibrium can be static or dynamic and may exist in a single market or multiple markets. It can be disrupted by exogenous factors, such as a change in consumer preferences, which can lead to a drop in demand and consequently a condition of oversupply in the market. In this case, a temporary state of disequilibrium will prevail until a new equilibrium price or level is established, at which point the market will revert back to economic equilibrium.

Price of market balance: P – price, Q - quantity of good, S – supply,

D – demand, P0 - price of market balance, A - surplus of demand - when P<P0, B - surplus of supply - when P>P0

In economics, economic equilibrium is a state of the world where economic forces are balanced and in the absence of external influences the (equilibrium) values of economic variables will not change. It is the point at which quantity demanded and quantity supplied are equal. Market equilibrium, for example, refers to a condition where a market price is established through competition such that the amount of goods or services sought by buyers is equal to the amount of goods or services produced by sellers. This price is often called the equilibrium price and will tend not to change unless demand or supply change.

In most simple microeconomic stories of supply and demand in a market a static equilibrium is observed in a market; however, economic equilibrium can exist in non-market relationships and can be dynamic. Equilibrium may also be multi-market or general, as opposed to the partial equilibrium of a single market.

In economics, the term equilibrium is used to suggest a state of "balance" between supply forces and demand forces. For example, an increase in supply will disrupt the equilibrium, leading to lower prices. Eventually, a new equilibrium will be attained in most markets. Then, there will be no change in price or the amount of output bought and sold – until there is an exogenous shift in supply or demand (such as changes in technology or tastes). That is, there are no endogenous forces leading to the price or the quantity.

Not all economic equilibria are stable. For an equilibrium to be stable, a small deviation from equilibrium leads to economic forces that returns an economic sub-system toward the original equilibrium. For example, if a movement out of supply/demand equilibrium leads to an excess supply (surplus, or glut), that excess induces price declines which return the market to a situation where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied. If supply and demand curves intersect more than once, then both stable and unstable equilibria are found.

Most economists e.g., Paul Samuelson caution against attaching a normative meaning (value judgment) to the equilibrium price. For example, food markets may be in equilibrium at the same time that people are starving (because they cannot afford to pay the high equilibrium price). Indeed, this occurred during the Great Famine in Ireland in 1845–52, where food was exported though people were starving, due to the greater profits in selling to the English – the equilibrium price of the Irish-British market for potatoes was above the price that Irish farmers could afford, and thus (among other reasons) they starved.