The law of demand states that the quan­tity demanded of a good shows an inverse rela­tion­ship with the price of a good when other fac­tors are held con­stant. It means that as the price increases, demand decreases.

The law of demand is a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple in macro­eco­nom­ics. It is used together with the law of sup­ply to deter­mine the effi­cient allo­ca­tion of resources in an econ­omy and find the opti­mal price and quan­tity of goods.

Figure: The Law of Demand

The law of demand is usu­ally rep­re­sented as a graph. The graph­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the law of demand is a curve that estab­lishes the rela­tion­ship between the quan­tity demanded and the price of a good.

The shape of the demand curve can vary among dif­fer­ent types of goods. Most fre­quently, the demand curve shows a con­cave shape. How­ever, in many eco­nom­ics text­books, we can also see the demand curve as a straight line.

The demand curve is drawn against the quan­tity demanded on the x-axis and the price on the y-axis. The def­i­n­i­tion of the law of demand indi­cates that the demand curve is down­ward slop­ing.

It is impor­tant to dis­tin­guish the dif­fer­ence between the demand and the quan­tity demanded. The quan­tity demanded is the num­ber of goods that the con­sumers are will­ing to buy at a given price point. On the other hand, the demand rep­re­sents all the avail­able rela­tion­ships between the good’s prices and the quan­tity demanded.