JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
The idea/phrase "supply and demand" goes back a very long way, and gets treated in a more-modern aspect by Locke (1767) and Adam Smith (1776) and David Ricardo (1813) and Thomas Malthus (1803)--however, the first time that the idea was presented graphically came with (the beautifully-named) Fleeming Jenkin in 1870. The famous graph appeared in "Graphic Representation of the Laws of Supply and Demand, their Application to Labour, Part I", published in Recess Studies, edited by Sir Alexander Grant and published in Edinburgh. And here it is, in brilliant simplicity:
He writes in this paper by way of introduction:
“Supply at a price denotes the quantity which at a given price holders would be then and there willing to sell. Supply at a price is also mensurable Demand at a price denotes the quantity which then and there buyers would purchase at that price. The supply at a price and the demand at a price in any given market will probably vary with the price they may be said to be functions of the price."
"Let a curve be drawn the abscissae of which represent prices and the ordinates the supplies at each price. This curve will be called the supply curve. A similar curve constructed with the demand at each price as ordinates will be called the demand curve."
A few notes in support of the Jenkin diagram:
"In his 1870 essay "On the Graphical Representation of Supply and Demand", Fleeming Jenkin in the course of "introduc[ing] the diagrammatic method into the English economic literature" published the first drawing of supply and demand curves in English, including comparative statics from a shift of supply or demand and application to the labor market. The model was further developed and popularized by Alfred Marshall in the 1890 textbook Principles of Economics."--Wikipedia on "Supply and Demand"
"Jenkin (1833 1885) "...analysed fully the determination of market price using diagrams to present the supply and demand functions in the form of intersecting curves. Jenkin specifically noted that in the long run cost of production chiefly determines the price of manufactured goods, but stressed 'how much the value of all things depends on simple mental phenomena, and not on laws having mere quantity of materials for their subject' "-- (The New Palgrave II, 1007).
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