In economics, an excess supply, economic surplus market surplus or briefly supply is a situation in which the quantity of a good or service supplied is more than the quantity demanded, and the price is above the equilibrium level determined by supply and demand. That is, the quantity of the product that producers wish to sell exceeds the quantity that potential buyers are willing to buy at the prevailing price. It is the opposite of an economic shortage (excess demand).
In cultural evolution, agricultural surplus in the Neolithic period is theorized to have produced a greater division of labor, resulting in social stratification and class.
