HOW A HIGHER PRICE RAISES PRODUCER SURPLUS
You will not be surprised to hear that sellers always want to receive a higher price
for the goods they sell. But how much does sellers’ well-being rise in response to
a higher price? The concept of producer surplus offers a precise answer to this
question.
Figure 7-6 shows a typical upward-sloping supply curve. Even though this
supply curve differs in shape from the steplike supply curves in the previous figure,
we measure producer surplus in the same way: Producer surplus is the area
below the price and above the supply curve. In panel (a), the price is P1, and producer
surplus is the area of triangle ABC.
Panel (b) shows what happens when the price rises from P1 to P2. Producer
surplus now equals area ADF. This increase in producer surplus has two parts.
First, those sellers who were already selling Q1 of the good at the lower price P1 are
better off because they now get more for what they sell. The increase in producer
surplus for existing sellers equals the area of the rectangle BCED. Second, some
new sellers enter the market because they are now willing to produce the good at
the higher price, resulting in an increase in the quantity supplied from Q1 to Q2.
The producer surplus of these newcomers is the area of the triangle CEF.
Quantity