Depends. Sometimes turkey prices drop before thanksgiving, as the producers plan their growth cycles around expected thanksgiving demand, and use freezers to meet demand. For example, see the 2022 august peak in poult placement in: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...

and https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-price-of-turkeys-fa...

The products often become loss-leaders (or close to it) to draw people into stores, so perhaps the interesting thing here is that valentines roses have a different pricing pattern -- probably because, unlike turkey, they don't freeze well, so supply is much less elastic.

Except for a the obvious counter examples. Like food in general very in demand and very cheap. Housing very in demand but very expensive. So it’s really more about who decides the prices than what.

Econ 101 explains those counter examples as well: Food has high demand but lots of competition and easy substitution (rice expensive? buy pasta). Housing supply is limited (by location but often artificially via regulation) and substitution is difficult (have to move).

People are not economically rational. Most people don't buy pasta when rice is expensive. Econ 101 explains rational actors in a vaccum, not gluten free, asian culture, anti Italians sentiment, or hatred of Monsanto.

> Most people don't buy pasta when rice is expensive.

They would if rice prices went through the roof, which they won't because people who sell rice are not stupid.

Econ 101 certainly explains why you can actually buy gluten free products now (supply for demand) and why gluten free products are usually more expensive (niche market).

My ECON 101 prof talked about the limitations of models and theories based on assumption of rational actors in the 1980s ... I have no idea why everyone thinks this is a gotcha.

No, they're geniuses because they're subsidized and will always be profitable. They lowered prices by taking it from your taxes.

Throw in subsidies like how Clinton ruined Jamaican rice with protectionism and your supply demand and price are no longer rational. https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/201-protectionism-indi...

Econ 101 ignores subsidies which account for 100% of the big 3 crops and more like rice, and ignores any form of economics.

I don’t know where you took Econ 101 but mine definitely covered how things like subsidies and protectionism perversely impact market forces. You’re just blaming economists for bad policies at this point.

Well, some might, you can get pasta that looks exactly like rice (orzo).

How many recessions has "Econ 101" predicted? Economics is a "soft science", on the same tier as psychology which people love to ridicule. Understanding how rational actors behave in a microeconomic sense doesn't help you when you're talking about irrational actors in the macroeconomic sense

The basics of Supply and Demand, Price Elasticity, Inflation, Monopolies, etc. etc. don't require humans to be perfectly rational actors to be useful concepts.

Yes, Economics can't predict recessions or the next Beanie Baby fad, that doesn't mean supply and demand is nonsense.

TBH, people routinely overlook the other two factors, supply and underlying cost.

Sometimes increases in demand can both increase supply and decrease cost.

“Underlying cost” is part of the supply curve.

Ok, imagine the cost is driven by underutilized fixed costs. How does the supply curve model the decrease in cost as demand increases?

“Demand goes up so price goes up” is true ceteris paribus. For instance, if the FDA banned Ozempic tomorrow, you would expect the price of food to go up because many of the Ozempic patients would return to their previous consumption habits. But there have been a thousand other things that have happened which adjusted the price up and down, and most of those events in the past 200 years made food cheaper instead of more expensive, because the world increased the amount of food it was able to grow a lot faster than people increased the size of their appetites.

In fact, this actually demonstrates another effect: as something becomes cheaper, people will consume more of it. Strictly speaking, demand is a curve where quantity demanded is inversely proportional to price; if “demand goes up” we usually mean the entire curve shifts to the right. There’s also a supply curve: quantity supplied is directly proportional to price. The intersection of these curves is the market price; nobody “decides the prices” unless you have a monopoly or cartel or government interference.

Housing, incidentally, is a classic example of government interference.

iPhones dropped in price as demand increased. Demand isn't as important as marketing, and this is probably supply limited rather than demand.

It doesn't really make sense to talk about a single product from a single supplier when talking about supply and demand. You completely leave out the competition side that drives the whole system.

A single example of gravity not working means the theory of gravity doesn't work, unless you mean that economics should not have scientific scrutiny.

Economics is in a dire state of proving theories right. It only accounts for perfectly rational actors. A famous nobel prize winner was proven wrong in the same year or so and he said his graphs didn't account for it.

iphones dropped in price?

In practical terms, yes. Adjusted for inflation, a modern iPhone costs roughly the same as the ones in prior generations, except now you get a lot more bang for your buck with better battery life, improved camera, etc.

iPhones aren't a monopoly (yet): they have to compete with Android phones still, plus Apple probably prioritizes increasing their marketshare and retaining customers over maximizing profit from iPhone sales. iPhones generate a lot of other profits from things like the app store, not just from the phone sales, so pricing the phones maximally would hurt those.