A market can be structured in a way depending on the characteristics of competition within the market. An existing debate in microeconomics is about if the consumer is better of in a monopoly market or in a perfect competition market. I Personally think that a monopoly market is better for a consumer's welfare because the price is set above marginal cost and the company earns a positive profit.
A monopoly market is where a individual company has full control of the supply and trade and they are identified by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of practical substitute goods. In monopolies the producer sets the price, he determines the price level by deciding what quantity of a good to produce. Public utility companies like for water tend to be monopolies. The price to apply pipes is so high it doesn't make sense to have more than one provider. There are no good replacement for water delivery so consumers or buyers have few options. If the water pipe distributor decided to higher their prices it is probable that most consumers would continue to purchase the pipes, so the seller is a price maker.
Monopoly’s Average revenue curve is also the Demand Curve. its Marginal Revenue curve is less than the Demand Curve to increase output, The monopolist then has to lower his price and every
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One disadvantage about the monopolistic market is that companies in order to have a different product than other companies they add features that are unrelated and do not concentrate on improving the main product which results in buyers paying extra for added features but in real life that feature of the product does not increase buyers
Consumers would lose-out from increased competition in the short-run, however in the long-run consumers would ultimately benefit from increased competition. High levels of competition prevent businesses from abusing their market power, such as setting prices above or below what a perfectly competitive market would dictate to be at equilibrium and also encourages businesses to be innovative instead of becoming complacent, relying on consumer’s lack of choices.
I believe that we have too many monopolies in Canada because monopolies give the consumer less choice, lower quality service, and products and services can be more costly to the consumer. In my opinion, a market-based economy with fewer monopolies will benefit the consumer because companies will compete to give you the best deal possible to retain your business. In this environment the consumer will benefit most as a consumer, I
A monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. A monopoly sells a good for which there is no close substitute. The absence of substitutes makes the demand for the good relatively inelastic thereby enabling monopolies to extract positive profits. It is this monopolizing of drug and process patents that has consumer advocates up in arms. The granting of exclusive rights to pharmacuetical companies over clinical a...
Compare to the pure competitor, the monopolist has a longer lifetime and therefore it allows the firm to have more opportunities for research and development from which the firm will reap the benefits. This might bring production cost down, lowering prices, increase production rates and raise the quality of goods (Ulbrich, 1990). The development of technological innovation will overcome technology barriers and allowing the growth of a new era of prosperity, hence fortifying why economy would benefit from monopolies that conducting research and
In a monopolistic structure, there is a high degree of competition but less perfect competition (Baker College, 2016). An oligopoly market where there is little competition but more than a monopoly. In a monopoly, firms face no competition (Baker College, 2016).
When a monopoly occurs because it is more efficient for one firm to serve an entire market than for two or more firms to do so, because of the sort of economies of scales available in that market. A common example is water distribution, in which the main cost is laying a network of pipes to deliver water.
The Postal Service Monopoly In the United States economy most markets can be classified into four different markets structures. But, each and every market in the United States is completely unique from the others. Generally the best type of market structure for the general public is per- fect competition because it creates the lowest possible price for the public.
An oligopoly is defined as "a market structure in which only a few sellers offer similar or identical products" (Gans, King and Mankiw 1999, pp.-334). Since there are only a few sellers, the actions of any one firm in an oligopolistic market can have a large impact on the profits of all the other firms. Due to this, all the firms in an oligopolistic market are interdependent on one another. This relationship between the few sellers is what differentiates oligopolies from perfect competition and monopolies. Although firms in oligopolies have competitors, they do not face so much competition that they are price takers (as in perfect competition). Hence, they retain substantial control over the price they charge for their goods (characteristic of monopolies).
When the word monopoly is spoken most immediately think of the board game made by Parker Brothers in which each player attempts to purchase all of the property and utilities that are available on the board and drive other players into bankruptcy. Clearly the association between the board game and the definition of the term are literal. The term monopoly is defined as "exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices" (Dictionary.com, 2008). Monopolies were quite common in the early days when businesses had no guidelines whatsoever. When the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into break up the Standard Oil business in the late 1800’s and enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (Wikipedia 2001), it set forth precedent for many cases to be brought up against it for years to come.
There are four major market structures; perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Perfect competition is the market structure in which there are many sellers and buyers, firms produce a homogeneous product, and there is free entry into and exit out of the industry (Amacher & Pate, 2013). A perfect competition is characterized by the fact that homogeneous products are being created. With this being the case consumers have no tendency to buy one product over the other, because they are all the same. Perfect competitions are also set up so that there is companies are free to enter and leave a market as they choose. They are allowed to do with without any type of restriction, from either the government or the other companies. This structure is purely theoretical, and represents and extreme end of the market structure. The opposite end of the market structure from perfect competition is monopoly.
Firms with market power or monopolies are often seen as detrimental for customers and economic welfare. According to the neoclassical theory, the market power of monopolies and oligopolies is potentially higher than that of firms in monopolistic or perfect competition since they have to face very limited competition, if any (Ferguson and Ferguson 1994). In monopolistic or perfect competition can make supernormal profits in the short term but eventually other firms will enter the market and offer alternative products that reduce the demand for the established firm’s products (Sloman et al., 2013 p. 177). Dissimilarly, this is not the case for dominant firms or monopolies; the lack of competition allows them to set prices and make supernormal profits increasing the perception that big companies are “bad” for consumers. As shown by the graphs in Figure 1 and 2, there are substantial differences in the competitive and monopoly markets. In a competitive environment, the equilibrium is reached where demand meets supply. In a monopolistic market, thanks to the establishment of higher prices and the production of lower quantities, monopolies or dominant firms make supernormal profits; additionally, there is a deadweight loss and some consumers who were willing to pay lower prices wil...
A Monopoly is a market structure characterised by one firm and many buyers, a lack of substitute products and barriers to entry (Pass et al. 2000). An oligopoly is a market structure characterised by few firms and many buyers, homogenous or differentiated products and also difficult market entry (Pass et al. 2000) an example of an oligopoly would be the fast food industry where there is a few firms such as McDonalds, Burger King and KFC that all compete for a greater market share.
Monopolies have a tendency to be bad for the economy. Granted, there are some that are a necessity of life such as natural and legal monopolies. However, the article I have chosen to review is “America’s Monopolies are Holding Back the Economy (Lynn, 2017)” and the name speaks for itself.
A monopoly is “a single firm in control of both industry output and price” (Review of Market Structure, n.d.). It has a high entry and exit barrier and a perceived heterogeneous product. The firm is the sole provider of the product, substitutes for the product are limited, and high barriers are used to dissuade competitors and leads to a single firm being able to ...
With there being several firms for 3 of the markets, the consumer benefits as they can find the cheapest producer, resulting in the producer being at a disadvantage as they could loose business. In a perfect competition market, the firm is unable to choose the price whereas in an oligopoly the price is chosen by the firm this is beneficial for the producer as it increases their profit margins. However, this is harmful for consumers as they will have to pay the higher prices.