When the price of something increases, the quantity demanded ___________

When the price of a good or service increases, the quantity demanded typically decreases due to the law of demand. This principle states that, all else being equal, as prices rise, consumers often choose to purchase less of that good because it becomes more expensive relative to their budget, leading them to either seek alternatives or reduce their overall consumption.

This behavior is driven by the substitution effect, where consumers will substitute away from more expensive goods to less expensive alternatives, and the income effect, where a price increase effectively reduces consumers' purchasing power, making them feel poorer and leading to lower consumption overall.

As a result, when analyzing demand curves, which graphically represent this relationship, an increase in price moves along the curve to a lower quantity demanded, confirming the inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded.