Short-run supply curve

Definition

To define a short-run supply curve, we need to fix the following backdrop:

• The specific good, service, or commodity being produced.
• A unit for measuring the quantity of the commodity.
• A unit for measuring price.
• A convention for whether sales taxes are included in the stated price.
• A certain firm or set of firms who are the potential producers/sellers of the good.
• The fixed costs incurred by the firm, which typically cannot be changed in the short run.
• An economic backdrop that includes all the other determinants of supply other than the unit price. These are primarily the prices of various factors of production.

With this backdrop, the short-run supply curve is a curve drawn with:

• The vertical axis is the price axis, measuring the price per unit of the good
• The horizontal axis is the quantity axis, measuring the total quantity supplied at the given price by the total of all the economic actors chosen above.

Note that the short-run supply curve makes sense ceteris paribus -- keeping the other determinants of supply constant.