Individual supply
Topic: Theory of the Firm, Supply and Perfect Competition · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 9 "The Price Puzzle: What Drives the Market"
Meaning
Individual supply is the quantity that one particular seller offers at different prices. It usually follows the law of supply, so the individual supply curve slopes upward. A higher price makes each extra unit profitable to produce, because marginal cost rises as output rises. Adding up the individual supplies of all sellers at each price gives market supply.
Example
Mango seller A offers 1 kg at ₹50/kg, 2 kg at ₹100/kg and 3 kg at ₹150/kg. At ₹100/kg, sellers B and C offer 4 kg and 6 kg. So market supply at that price is 2 + 4 + 6 = 12 kg.
Don't confuse with
- Market supply: this is the horizontal sum of all sellers' individual supplies at each price, for a fixed number of firms.