Insufficient food supply for population.

Insufficient U.S. dollars for trade.

Cost incurred from insufficient inventory.

A chip shortage, also referred to as semiconductor shortage or chip famine, is a phenomenon in the integrated circuit (chip) industry when demand for silicon chips outstrips supply.

thumb |A tent city, a form of improvised housing, in Oakland, California

In the years since World War II there has been a substantial reduction in the number of priests per capita in the Catholic Church, a phenomenon considered by many to constitute a "shortage" in the number of priests.

"Shortage economy" is a term coined by Hungarian economist János Kornai, who used this term to criticize the old centrally-planned economies of the communist states of the Eastern Bloc.