ELASTICITY OF SUPPLY AS A DETERMINANT OF DISTRIBUTION 107 
decrease in Y, and this in turn will unleash added quantities of 
Y and will cause the supply of X to shrink still more. Though 
mathematically a new point of equilibrium can be found, its 
economic significance, if any, is not certain. 
If only those units of a factor which continue to be supplied 
were to be consulted, they would wish not only that their 
number should remain stationary under prosperity, but that 
it should actually decrease. The surviving units would be still 
further aided if the rival factor actually poured forth more of 
itself whenever the remuneration per unit of this second factor 
is decreased. 
With two factors having negative supply curves, an increase in 
the effective bargaining power of one results in a cumulative 
showering of advantages upon the factor which improves its 
position and a cumulative degradation of the factor which does 
not. It would be a continued process of giving to him that hath 
and of taking away from him that hath not. This would indeed 
be unstable equilibrium. The same forces would be set at work 
although to a lesser degree, if the factor which improved its 
position were, while of positive elasticity, to have a lower 
coefficient of elasticity than that of the factor with the negatively 
inclined supply curve. 
It may also be said that the changes in return per unit which I 
have sketched as being created by a change in bargaining power, 
seem, according to computations made by my associate, Mr. S. W. 
Wilcox, to be true also as regards the relative share of the total 
product secured by each in the case of the more plausible 
formule experimented with for the equation giving product as a 
function of the number of units of the factors of production. 
8B. The Influence of the Relative Proportion of the Total Product 
Received by the Factors 
It is not pretended that the influences upon distribution of the 
respective supply curves which have been sketched above are the 
sole forces determining the unit and proportional returns received 
by each of the factors of production. That they do affect in an 
important manner the amounts and shares received has, I hope, 
been demonstrated by the necessarily summary discussion which 
has been given. But there are other factors to be considered 
and other problems which must be solved before we can arrive at