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Economic surplus

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Graph illustrating consumer (red) and producer (blue) surpluses on a supply and demand chart

An economic surplus is when you have more of something in the economy than people demand. There are two types:

Consumers' surplus is the gain by consumers who can buy a product for less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay.

Producers' surplus is the amount got by producers who sell at a market price higher than the least they would be willing to sell for.[1][2]

References

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  1. Boulding, Kenneth E. (1945). "The Concept of Economic Surplus". The American Economic Review. 35 (5): 851–869. JSTOR 1812599.
  2. "Consumer and producer surplus|Microeconomics|Khan Academy". Khan Academy.