4-3a The Supply Curve: The Relationship between Price and Quantity Supplied The quantity supplied of any good or service is the amount that sellers are will- ing and able to sell. There are many determinants of quantity supplied, but once again, price plays a special role in our analysis. When the price of ice cream is high, selling ice cream is profitable, and so the quantity supplied is large. Sell- ers of ice cream work long hours, buy many ice-cream machines, and hire many workers. By contrast, when the price of ice cream is low, the business is less prof itable, so sellers produce less ice cream. At a low price, some sellers may even choose to shut down, and their quantity supplied falls to zero. This relationship between price and quantity supplied is called the law of supply: Other things be- ing equal, when the price of a good rises, the quantity supplied of the good also rises, and when the price falls, the quantity supplied falls as well. The table in Figure 5 shows the quantity of ice-cream cones supplied each month by Ben, an ice-cream seller, at various prices of ice cream. At a price belov