Market Supply Curves

While it is a truism that the supply curve of the market is made up of the total of what the firms in that market are able to supply at various prices, the variability of firms complicates the summation of individual supply curves. Moreover, other factors, which could be ignored for the firm having a relatively small share of the market, may dominate the market supply curve, thus making the total market supply curve different from the sum of the individual firms’ supply curves. These problems are discussed below and the conclusion for the supply curves of the firm and of the market are summarised in Table 11.1.