Firms' Incentives to Avoid Price Competition in Oligopoly Markets
In the UK a few, large firms dominate most industries. These
industries are known as oligopoly markets. Oligopoly markets are an
example of imperfect competition. It consists of a market structure in
which there is a small number of large firms in the industry hence is
relatively highly concentrated. Barriers to entry and exit are also
likely to exist. In oligopoly markets there is product
differentiation, the extent of which depends on the type of product
produced. This leads to interdependency, as the actions of one large
firm will directly affect another large firm. Therefore, firms are
said to be operating under conditions of uncertainty because firms are
unable to judge the future actions of their competitors and hence
their own firm's future.
For example, if an oligopolist firm raises its prices, it could risk
loosing market share if its competitors do not follow which would lead
to lower profits for that firm. If the firm was to reduce prices, it
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According to antitrust laws put in place by the government,the unfair competition and the act of setting premium prices without considering the buying power of the suppliers is condemned. Antitrust laws discourages monopolistic competition which elimi...
While the market shares of the ownership types suggest that the UK petrol market is more towards monopolistic competition than oligopoly, the manner in which the companies behave indicates otherwise. Although both monopolistic competitive companies and oligopolies engage in non-price completion, the companies are interdependent and there are considerable barriers to entry. In this case, the UK petrol retail market reflects competitive oligopoly as the retailers are competing against each other.
A monopoly is a company that is the sole provider of a product or service. When there is a monopoly on a product, it means that there is not viable substitutes or competitors for the product or service that the company provides, and barriers that keep other companies from entering the market. Because the monopoly is the only company providing a product, they control price, supply, and other significant details of a product. Monopolies that are seen in a negative light are raising the price of products to higher than what they are worth and consequently being unfair towards their consumers by giving them a bad deal on a product (Cox). Of course, not all monopolies are bad for consumers.
The Structure Of The Market Structure Of Oligopoly And The Difficulty In Predicting Output And Profits
The essential factor of an oligopolistic firm is interdependence. Oligopoly involves few producers, which means more than one producer as it is in pure monopoly but not so many as in monopolistic competition or pure competition where it is difficult to follow rival firms’ actions. Therefore, due to small number of producers on oligopoly market, the price and output solutions are interdependent. As a result, firms can cooperate or come to an agreement profitable for everyone. Therefore, they can increase, as it is possible, their joint profits (Pleeter & Way, 1990, p.129). Further, oligopoly is divided on pure, which is producing homogeneous products, and differentiated, producing heterogeneous products (Gallaway, 2000). Economists Farris and Happel insist that the more the product is differentiated, the more firms become independent, and the more the product differentiation, “the less likely joint profit maximization exists for the entire group” (1987, p. 263). Consequently, it is worth to be interdependent.
There are many industries. Economist group them into four market models: 1) pure competition which involves a very large number of firms producing a standardized producer. New firms may enter very easily. 2) Pure monopoly is a market structure in which one firm is the sole seller a product or service like a local electric company. Entry of additional firms is blocked so that one firm is the industry. 3)Monopolistic competition is characterized by a relatively large number of sellers producing differentiated product. 4)Oligopoly involves only a few sellers; this “fewness” means that each firm is affected by the decisions of rival and must take these decisions into account in determining its own price and output. Pure competition assumes that firms and resources are mobile among different kinds of industries.
Monopolies are under constant critics from the public and other producers of being polutive, straining to competition and they are accused of worsening resource allocation. Whether this is true or not, depends on the specific company, but certain characteristics are possible to define. It is these I will describe in the following, and hence conclude if monopolies worsen or improve resource allocation.
A perfect competition is a microeconomics idea that depicts a market sector structure controlled totally by market sector powers. In a perfectly competitive market sector, all organizations offer indistinguishable products and services. Firms could not control winning market sector costs, piece of the overall industry per firm is little, firms and clients have immaculate learning about the market, and no boundaries to passage or way out exist. If by any chance that any of these conditions are not met, a market sector is not perfectly competitive. Perfect competition is a conceptual idea that happens in economics aspects course books. However, not in this present reality. Imperfect competition, in which a focused market sector does not meet
Sheffet, Mary Jane. "The Supreme Court And Predatory Pricing." Journal Of Public Policy & Marketing 13.1 (1994): 163-167. Business Source Complete. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
An oligopolistic market has a small number of sellers dominating market share and therefore barriers to entry are high. These sellers are highly competitive and do not act independently of each other. Access to information is limited so sellers can only speculate of their competitor’s actions. Sellers will take advantage of competitor’s price changes in order to increase market share.
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).
Markets have four different structures which need different "attitudes" from the suppliers in order to enter, compete and effectively gain share in the market. When competing, one can be in a perfect competition, in a monopolistic competition an oligopoly or a monopoly [1]. Each of these structures ensures different situations in regards to competition from a perfect competition where firms compete all being equal in terms of threats and opportunities, in terms of the homogeneity of the products sold, ensuring that every competitor has the same chance to get a share of the market, to the other end of the scale where we have monopolies whereby one company alone dominates the whole market not allowing any other company to enter the market selling the product (or service) at its price.
There are three main features that distinguish between a perfect competition and monopoly market structure: the type of firm, the freedom of entry and the nature of the product (Sloman and Norris 1999, pg, 161). A table of these features is contained in Appendix A. These two market structures are on opposite ends of the scale and consequently, the features and benefits of each structure vary quite dramatically.
Question: “A single-price monopoly will always charge a price that is on the elastic range of the demand for the monopoly’s output.” Discuss using relevant diagrams or algebra.”