Talk:Economic shortage

The version written by "Nikodemos" absolutely blows. Oh, and it is wrong too. Economics is a science, and it requires precise writing, and that article doesn't have it. But who's keeping track anyway... For a more accurate version, you'll have to read the version here:

Drug Prohibition Example
Equating a ban on drugs to a price ceiling of 0 is questionable. Wouldn't that imply it's still legal to sell drugs at a negative price, ie. pay someone to take drugs? Also, price ceilings of 0 are imposed on some legal products. For example, British restaurants are required by law to provide tap water free of charge. Clearly two very different scenarios.

The threat of punishment adds to the opportunity cost of  drug ownership, which means higher cost of production and consumption, ie. an upward shift in the both the supply and demand curve, and not a price set below the intersection of the two curves associated with a shortage.

I suggest deleting this example and replacing it with a clearer one, such as traffic congestion Klafubra 10:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Some editor has proposed merging this article (Economic shortage) with the article Excess supply.

As of 12 March 2014, there is a MERGE tag in both articles, and the discussion redirects to here. However, that editor did not stick around to provide any rationale for their proposal. (these notes added by N2e (talk) on 12 March)


 * Oppose the merge as proposed. Excess supply is the condition that is associated with a surplus, not a shortage.  The proposer is mixing terms.  Rationale:  "shortage" is a very widely used concept in economics, taught in any basic course on Microeconomics, and shortage is described as that condition that results when the price is (and remains for some period of time) below the market clearing price in the supply/demand model.  "Surplus" is quite the opposite, being that condition that emerges when the price is (and remains for some period of time) above the market clearing price in the supply/demand model.  N2e (talk) 14:49, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose The topics are not symmetric. "In economics and decision theory, loss aversion refers to people's tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains." I'm going to remove the merge proposal as it hasn't gained any traction over a year. &mdash; MaxEnt 05:44, 7 May 2014 (UTC)