Economic surplus in the context of "Price"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about Economic surplus in the context of "Price"

Ad spacer

⭐ Core Definition: Economic surplus

In mainstream economics, economic surplus, also known as total welfare or total social welfare or Marshallian surplus (after Alfred Marshall), is either of two related quantities:

  • Consumer surplus, or consumers' surplus, is the monetary gain obtained by consumers because they are able to purchase a product for a price that is less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay.
  • 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 sum of consumer and producer surplus is sometimes known as social surplus or total surplus; a decrease in that total from inefficiencies is called deadweight loss.

↓ Menu

>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier

Economic surplus in the context of Agriculture

Agriculture is the practice of cultivating the soil, planting, raising, and harvesting both food and non-food crops, as well as livestock production. Broader definitions also include forestry and aquaculture. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated plants and animals created food surpluses that enabled people to live in the cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output.

As of 2021, small farms, of which the vast majority are one hectare (about 2.5 acres) or smaller, produce about one-third of the world's food. Moreover, five of every six farms in the world consist of fewer than 2 hectares (4.9 acres) and take up only around 12% of all agricultural land. In terms of total land use, large farms are dominant. While only 1% of all farms globally are greater than 50 hectares (120 acres), they encompass more than 70% of the world's farmland. Further, nearly 40% of all global agricultural land is found on farms larger than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres).

↑ Return to Menu

Economic surplus in the context of Allocative efficiency

Allocative efficiency is a state of the economy in which production is aligned with the preferences of consumers and producers; in particular, the set of outputs is chosen so as to maximize the social welfare of society. This is achieved if every produced good or service has a marginal benefit equal to or greater than the marginal cost of production.

↑ Return to Menu

Economic surplus in the context of Sustainable yield

Sustainable yield is the amount of a resource that humans can harvest without over-harvesting or damaging a potentially renewable resource.

In more formal terms, the sustainable yield of natural capital is the ecological yield that can be extracted without reducing the base of capital itself, i.e. the surplus required to maintain ecosystem services at the same or increasing level over time. The term only refers to resources that are renewable in nature as extracting non-renewable resources will always diminish the natural capital. The sustainable yield of a given resource will generally vary over time with the ecosystem's needs to maintain itself. For instance, a forest that has suffered from a natural disaster will require more of its own ecological yield to sustain itself and re-establish a mature forest. This results in a decrease of the forest's sustainable yield. The definition of sustainable yield has changed throughout history and the term itself has been described as anthropocentric due to limitations in applying ecological complexity. The term sustainable yield is most commonly used in forestry, fisheries, and groundwater applications.

↑ Return to Menu

Economic surplus in the context of Capital account

In macroeconomics and international finance, the capital account, also known as the capital and financial account, records the net flow of investment into an economy. It is one of the two primary components of the balance of payments, the other being the current account. Whereas the current account reflects a nation's net income, the capital account reflects net change in ownership of national assets.

A surplus in the capital account means money is flowing into the country, but unlike a surplus in the current account, the inbound flows effectively represent borrowings or sales of assets rather than payment for work. A deficit in the capital account means money is flowing out of the country, and it suggests the nation is increasing its ownership of foreign assets.

↑ Return to Menu

Economic surplus in the context of Shortage

In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market. It is the opposite of an excess supply (surplus).

↑ Return to Menu

Economic surplus in the context of Willingness to accept

In economics, willingness to accept (WTA) is the minimum monetary amount that а person is willing to accept to sell a good or service, or to bear a negative externality, such as pollution. This is in contrast to willingness to pay (WTP), which is the maximum amount of money a consumer (a buyer) is willing to sacrifice to purchase a good/service or avoid something undesirable. The price of any transaction will thus be any point between a buyer's willingness to pay and a seller's willingness to accept; the net difference is the economic surplus.

Several methods exist to measure consumer willingness to accept payment. These methods can be differentiated by whether they measure consumers' hypothetical or actual willingness to accept, and whether they measure it directly or indirectly.

↑ Return to Menu