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I agree that it's poorly defined, but I would argue that a shortage at the market price implies that buyers would buy more at the market price if more of it was
by Eridrus 10y ago
I agree that it's poorly defined, but I would argue that a shortage at the market price implies that buyers would buy more at the market price if more of it was available.
We're pretty comfortable talking about shortages in consumer markets when we would buy things at the stated price, but can't because it is sold out (eg Pixel phone shortages), so I'm not sure why we can't say a similar thing about labour.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> I would argue that a shortage at the market price implies that buyers would buy more at the market price if more of it was available. That can just be a current price below the equilibrium market price; I'd argue that a shortage is a specialized instance of that resulting from a transitory decrease from long-term supply (or increase from long-term demand) that is expected to revert to normal. But if you need annual supplements of labor for the same field over a period of decades, that's not a labor shortage, its price being artificially suppressed (and inhibiting market signals that would develop domestic supply faster.)
- dllthomas 10y ago> But if you need annual supplements of labor for the same field over a period of decades, that's not a labor shortage, its price being artificially suppressed Theoretically, couldn't it also be that demand is consistently growing faster than anticipated (even after whatever corrections are made upon discovery that it previously grew faster than anticipated)?