We've seen that natural market forces tend to move markets toward equilibria. In other words, markets that aren't in equilibrium will tend to move toward it. Why is this important? Is it because most markets are in equilibrium most of the time?

The answer is almost certainly no. Disequilibria abound, but the forces pushing markets toward equilibrium are powerful. An understanding of these forces and how markets tend to adjust when out of equilibrium is very valuable in both predicting future market behavior and explaining past behavior.

As we noted before, equilibrium hardly means that everyone is satisfied with current prices. Indeed, it is probably the case that no one likes current prices. Such dissatisfaction often leads to attempts to force prices away from equilibrium prices, as we shall see...

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