ABSTRACT
An excess demand or excess supply of most commodities will raise or lower price, usually causing demand and supply alike to adjust and help restore equilibrium. When price is not flexible enough to restore equilibrium, the piling up or drawing down of inventories or unfilled orders takes over the function of adjustment, slowing or accelerating the flow of output until equilibrium is restored. Lags and repercussions through other markets can slow, complicate or even vitiate this process of adjustment; but by and large, market forces in commodity markets function fairly well.
