In the previous post, we learnt about how governments sometimes have a say in what the price of a particular good is eventually going to be. However, in the case of other goods simple market forces determine the price.

Market forces refer to the forces of supply and demand, which we spoke about in the previous post. In this post, we’re going to speak about how those forces actually work in practice.

Most of us have in reading for a while about how real estate prices in some (but not all!) parts of the country have either been flat or falling. Now, in a nation of 1.3 billion people, less than half of whom stay in cities, that doesn’t really make sense. India’s growing steadily richer, more people are moving to the cities, and so more people should demand housing. More demand = higher price, right?

Well, most of the times, yes. But it turns out that in certain parts of India (parts of Pune, Gurgaon, Noida and Bangalore are good examples right now) many more apartments are for sale than there are buyers right now. And in particular, it turns out, there are many more “luxury” apartments for sale than there are buyers. So yes, there is strong demand, but there is stronger supply.

So apartments remain unsold, and that results in the kind of gimmicks and price discounts that you see builders resorting to these days. How do such situations tend to resolve themselves? Well, in any one of three ways: either builders reduce the price to entice more buyers to come into the market, or over time, more buyers enter the market in any case, or both.

This process isn’t always smooth of course – but that’s part and parcel of living in the real world. The real lesson of this blog post is actually quite simple: a change in the price of a particular commodity could be because of changes in supply, or changes in demand, or both.

And since real markets are always reacting to new information and since buyers and sellers are always adjusting to new information on a real time basis, it becomes quite difficult to figure out whether the price change is only due to supply or demand. When you add the government to the mix, as in the previous post, the situation becomes very messy indeed.

But that’s what makes economics so fascinating! Teasing out these effects (increased supply, reduced demand, government interventions) and therefore reasoning out your best response as a producer or consumer is an endlessly fascinating game that, if played well, can end up enriching you quite considerably. Try thinking about other markets this way: cellphones, college fees, the price of tur daal – and see where you go with your analysis.

Supply, demand… or both?