Giovanna Kiamos
Professor Rukhama Halim
Principles of Economics: Micro SUMMER 1 2015
August 5, 2015
Monopoly Market Structure The word monopoly derives from the Greek meaning (monos μόνος (alone or single) + polein πωλεῖν (to sell). A monopoly is a market structure in which there is only one supplier of a product and/or service for which there is no competition or close substitute – a true testament to its Greek meaning. This paper will take a closer look at the Monopoly Market Structure and how it affects/impacts businesses, consumers, prices as well as supply and demand.
The monopoly market structure (sometimes called a pure monopoly) is free to set any price it chooses. Since it is free to set its prices, it is referred to as a price maker and not a price taker like a competitive firm. Unlike the consumers of a perfectly competitive firm, the consumers of a monopolistic firm cannot go elsewhere.
The monopoly market structure, as well as any other market structure, will most often set prices that yield the highest profit. As the sole providers of a product and/or service, monopolies have no competition and no price restrictions but what must be understood, is the difference between “market power” and “monopoly power” which are related but not the same. “The Supreme Court has defined market power as “the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,” and monopoly power as “the power to control prices or exclude competition.”
The monopolist finds it profitable to discriminate among various buyers, charge higher prices to those who are more willing to pay and lower prices to those who are less willing to pay (Sexton, 2013). One example of price discrimination from my own experience is: I work for Walmart and I am a Cashier there, I have checked out customer that own stores come in to purchase many different types of items for their business and some would say that it is cheaper to come to Walmart than to purchase from the retailers. Say they come in and purchase 10 loaves bread at the price of 88 cents, but they would resell it for $1.47 more to make a profit. Difficulty in reselling would be the conditions necessary for this price discrimination are met. In order
A monopoly is advantageous to the society and is encourages by the government if there are high fixed costs and very strong economies of scale. At the same time, it could also lead to unequal distribution of wealth; containment of consumer choice; lobbying and unethical spending.
There is just a one person who sells products or services and there are no incentives which help to break this monopoly. There are many monopoly industries in the market. In monopoly, they use patents because they don’t like if someone’s copy their inventions.
Monopolies are quite dangerous economically, and are usually broken up by the federal government, with only two exceptions- electricity, and gas. These are modern examples. A monopoly is the economic term for when a company that makes a product has no competition, and can raise the prices as high as they want. For example, the most obvious and powerful monopoly of the industrial revolution was the railroad monopoly. They made money quite quickly as a shipping company, and destroyed any and all competition as the only transcontinental railroad at the time. It’s leader, Cornelius Vanderbilt came to be considered one of the most powerful people of all time, due to his control over who he shipped for.
In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge high prices.[4] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[5]
Since a monopoly is the only seller of a good in the market, the demand curve is the market demand curve. Therefore a monopoly has a downward sloping demand curve, in contrast to the horizontal sloping demand curve of a firm in a competitive market (Mankiw, 2014). Monopolies aim to find the profit-maximizing price for its product. If a firm is initially producing at a low level of output, marginal revenue exceeds marginal costs (Mankiw, 2014). Every time production increases by one unit, the marginal revenue increases again and is greater than marginal costs (Mankiw, 2014). Therefore
By definition a Monopoly is exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices (Monopoly 2012). Individuals are often time fearful of a company or industry becoming a monopoly because it would control too much of a market share, and do whatever wants; this includes raising prices, to using excess capital to branch into even more areas (Rise of monopolies 1996). The market structure of a monopoly is characterized by; a single seller; a unique product; and impossible entry into the market (Tucker 2011). A monopoly can be a difficult thing to accomplish being that a single seller faces an entire industry demand curve due to the fact it makes up the industry as a
Since colonial times, monopolies have been present in the United States’s economy. But as always, with time comes change, and that situation directly applies to the monopolies in this country. A monopoly is defined as the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes the manipulation of prices possible. Monopolies had a negative impact on the United States due their unfairness to consumers and laborers, they don’t allow for innovation, and they stifle all competition.
Monopolies played a big factor in the 1870’s to 1914. These originally came to the United States with the colonial administration. Monopoly’s refers to a market structure whereby there is only a single firm operating in an economy. Companies though normally characterized by the absence of competition in the market.
Firm under perfect competition and the firm under monopoly are similar as the aim of both the seller is to maximize profit and to minimize loss. The equilibrium position followed by both the monopoly and perfect competition is MR = MC. Despite their similarities, these two forms of market organization differ from each other in respect of price-cost-output. There are many points of difference which are noted below.
Monopoly is a firm that is the sole seller of a product without close substitutes. A monopoly is caused by barriers to entry which means that there is only one seller in the market and no other firm can enter or compete with that sole seller. There are three main sources to barrier to entry, monopoly resources: a key resource required for production is owned by a single firm. Government regulation, which is the government gives a single firm the exclusive right to produce some good or service. Also the production process, which is a single firm can produce output at a lower cost than a large number of firms.
There are different kinds of markets in different economies/sectors/goods. Accordingly, there are different kinds of output and pricing decisions which take place. Usually, output and pricing decisions are interdependent except for the case of perfectly competitive markets. In perfectly competitive markets, a single firm is so small compared to the market that it cannot affect the prices. In that case, it must take the price as given, and then decide the quantity to be supplied. Price in this market is equal to the marginal cost of production. In monopoly, however, things are different. The monopolist can change the prices, as it is the sole provider of the good and thus has the market power. But here also, if the price increases quantity demanded
The natural monopolies have been subject to price controls by the government. The general aim of price regulation has been to protect consumers and ensure adequate output. For instance, in the case of a monopoly supplier of natural gas, once the pipes have been laid in an area, the marginal cost of adding an additional user is very low. With no regulation, the monopolist would produce where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. This is very inefficient, as the marginal cost will be less than price at the profit maximizing level of output. This implies that not enough service will be supplied and the price will be too high for some consumers to afford. Moreover, due to high economies of scale, it is hard to encourage competition.
What is a monopoly? According to Webster's dictionary, a monopoly is "the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a given market.” Such power in the hands of a few is harmful to the public and individuals because it minimizes, if not eliminates normal competition in a given market and creates undesirable price controls. This, in turn, undermines individual enterprise and causes markets to crumble. In this paper, we will present several aspects of monopolies, including unfair competition, price control, and horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate mergers.
There is only one model for monopoly and one for perfect competition but in contrast to these oligopolies have several models to try to explain how they react, examples of these are the kinked demand curve, Bertrand and Cournot models. A non competitive oligopoly is ‘a market where a small number of firms act independently but are aware of each others actions’ (Oligopoly, Online). In perfect competition no single firm can affect price or quantity this is due to intense competition and the relative small size of the firms, on the other hand there is a monopoly market where there is little or no rivalry and firms have control over the market. Oligopoly is a state in-between perfect competition and monopoly where the firm can change its