The supply curve for any input, including labor, will be upward sloping (we'll get to a possible exception in the case of labor in a few pages). The curve slopes upward because, just as in the case of final goods, the cost of providing inputs rises as more are supplied.

    We use W to represent the unit costs of an input. For labor we can think of this as the wage, for non-labor inputs we could think of it as a rental rate or a unit price. Just remember that W is the unit price paid for a factor whatever form that factor takes.

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