scarcity

Fundamental problem of economics where there are limited resources to fulfill society's unlimited wants

Also known as shortage · scarce

Instance of: economic concept
Subclass of: economic problem
, deficiency
, operational risk

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

In economics, scarcity refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good. If the conditions of scarcity did not exist and an "infinite amount of every good could be produced or human wants fully satisfied ... there would be no economic goods, i.e. goods that are relatively scarce..." Scarcity is the limited availability of a commodity, which may be in demand in the market or by the commons. Scarcity also includes an individual's lack of resources to buy commodities. The opposite of scarcity is abundance. Scarcity plays a key role in economic theory, and it is essential for a "proper definition of economics itself"."The best example is perhaps Walras' definition of social wealth, i.e., economic goods. 'By social wealth', says Walras, 'I mean all things, material or immaterial, that are scarce, that is to say, on the one hand, useful to us and, on the other hand, only available to us in limited quantity'."

Overview

All data

33 statements · 36% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Partially coincident with: rarity
excess demand

On other databases

26 identifiers linking scarcity across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

36%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 12, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). scarcity (Q815758). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/scarcity-Q815758