what if the market price for wheat was p1 at this price consumers are willing to purchase more wheat q2 at a lower price on the other hand since the price is below the equilibrium price suppliers will provide a smaller amount of wheat q1 to sell as the price may be too low to cover their marginal costs of production in this case when pe falls to p1 there will be a shortage of wheat as the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied for the commodity 
since resources are not allocated efficiently the market is said to be in disequilibrium in a free market it is expected that the price would increase to the equilibrium price as the scarcity of the good forces the price to go up reasons for disequilibriumthere are a number of reasons for market disequilibrium sometimes disequilibrium occurs when a supplier sets a fixed price for a good or service for a certain time period during this period of sticky prices if the quantity demanded increases in the market for the good or service there will be a shortage of supply another reason for disequilibrium is government intervention if the government sets a floor or ceiling for a good or service the market may become inefficient if the quantity supplied is disproportionate to the quantity demanded for example if the government sets a price ceiling on rent landlords may be reluctant to rent out their extra property to tenants and there will be excess demand for housing due to the shortage of rental property from the standpoint of the economy disequilibrium can occur in the labor market a labor market disequilibrium can occur when the government sets a minimum wage that is a price floor on the wage that an employer can pay its employees if the stipulated price floor is higher than the labor equilibrium price there will be an excess supply of labor in the economy 