Monopoly: Monopoly and The Economic Analysis of Market Structures
Monopoly: Monopoly and The Economic Analysis of Market Structures
In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος (alone or single) + polein / πωλειν (to
sell)) 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.[1][clarification needed] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition
for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods.[2] The verb
"monopolize" refers to the process by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than
what is expected under perfect competition.
A monopoly must be distinguished from monopsony, in which there is only one buyer of a
product or service ; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market.
Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which
several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies can
form naturally or through vertical or horizontal mergers. A monopoly is said to be coercive when
the monopoly firm actively prohibits competitors from entering the field.
In general, the main results from this theory refer to compare price-fixing methods across market
structures, analyze the impact of a certain structure on welfare, and play with different variations
of technological/demand assumptions in order to asses its consequences on the abstract model of
society. Most economic textbooks follow the practice of carefully explaining the perfect
competition model, only because of its usefulness to understand "departures" from it (the so
called imperfect competition models).
The definition of what constitutes a market and what doesn't, is considered relevant for the
purpose of economic analysis. In a general equilibrium context, a good is a specific concept
entangling geographical and time-related characteristics (grapes sold in october of 2009 in
moscow is a different good from grapes sold in october of 2009 in New York). Most studies of
market structure relax a little their definition of a good, allowing for more flexibility at the
identification of substitute-goods. Therefore, one can find an economic analysis of the market of
grapes in Russia, for example, which is not a market in the strict sense of general equilibrium
theory.
In addition to barriers to entry and competition, barriers to exit may be a source of market power.
Barriers to exit are market conditions that make it difficult or expensive for a firm to leave the
market. High liquidation costs are a primary barrier to exit.[12] Market exit and shutdown are
separate events. The decision whether to shut down or operate is not affected by exit barriers. A
firm will shut down if price falls below minimum average variable costs.
Market Power - market power is the ability to control the terms and condition of exchange.
Specifically market power is the ability to raise prices without losing all one's customers to
competitors. Perfectly competitive (PC) firms have zero market power when it comes to setting
prices. All firms in a PC market are price takers. The price is set by the interaction of demand
and supply at the market or aggregate level. Individual firms simply take the price determined by
the market and produce that quantity of output that maximize the firm's profits. If a PC firm
attempted to raise prices above the market level all its "customers" would abandon the firm and
purchase at the market price from other firms. A monopoly has considerable although not
unlimited market power. A monopoly has the power to set prices or quantities although not both.
[15]
A monopoly is a price maker.[16] The monopoly is the market[17] and prices are set by the
monopolist based on his circumstances and not the interaction of demand and supply. The two
primary factors determining monopoly market power are the firm's demand curve and its cost
structure.[18]
Number of competitors: PC markets are populated by an infinite number of buyers and sellers.
Monopoly involves a single seller.[19]
Barriers to Entry - Barriers to entry are factors and circumstances that prevent entry into
market by would be competitors and impediments to competition that limit new firm’s from
operating and expanding within the market. PC markets have free entry and exit. There are no
barriers to entry, exit or competition. Monopolies have relatively high barriers to entry. The
barriers must be strong enough to prevent or discourage any potential competitor from entering
the market.
PED; the price elasticity of demand is the percentage change in demand caused by a one percent
change in relative price. A successful monopoly would face a relatively inelastic demand curve.
A high coefficient of elasticity is indicative of effective barriers to entry. A PC firm faces what it
perceives to be perfectly elastic demand curve. The coefficient of elasticity for a perfectly
competitive demand curve is infinite.
Excess Profits- Excess or positive profits are profit above the normal expected return on
investment. A PC firm can make excess profits in the short run but excess profits attract
competitors who can freely enter the market and drive down prices eventually reducing excess
profits to zero.[20] A monopoly can preserve excess profits because barriers to entry prevent
competitors from entering the market.
Profit Maximization - A PC firm maximizes profits by producing where price equals marginal
costs. A monopoly maximizes profits by producing where marginal revenue equals marginal
costs.[21] The rules are equivalent. The demand curve for a PC firm is perfectly elastic - flat. The
demand curve is identical to the average revenue curve and the price line. Since the average
revenue curve is constant the marginal revenue curve is also constant and equals the demand
curve, Average revenue is the same as price (AR = TR/Q = P x Q/Q = P). Thus the price line is
also identical to the demand curve. In sum, D = AR = MR = P.
P-Max quantity, price and profit: if a monopolist took over a perfectly competitive industry he
would raise prices cut production and realize positive economic profits.[22]
The most significant distinction between a PC firm and a monopoly is that the monopoly faces a
downward sloping demand curve rather than the "perceived" perfectly elastic curve of the PC
firm.[23] Practically all the variations above mentioned relate to this fact. If there is a downward
sloping demand curve then by necessity there is a distinct marginal revenue curve. The
implications of this fact are best made manifest with a linear demand curve, Assume that the
inverse demand curve is of the form x = a - by. Then the total revenue curve is TR = ay - by2 and
the marginal revenue curve is thus MR = a - 2by. From this several things are evident. First the
marginal revenue curve has the same y intercept as the inverse demand curve. Second the slope
of the marginal revenue curve is twice that of the inverse demand curve. Third the x intercept of
the marginal revenue curve is half that of the inverse demand curve. What is not quite so evident
is that the marginal revenue curve lies below the inverse demand curve at all points.[23] Since all
firms maximize profits by equating MR and MC it must be the case that at the profit maximizing
quantity MR and MC are less than price which further implies that a monopoly produces less
quantity at a higher price than if the market were perfectly competitive.
A company with a monopoly does not undergo price pressure from competitors, although it may
face pricing pressure from potential competition. If a company raises prices too high, then others
may enter the market if they are able to provide the same good, or a substitute, at a lower price.
[24]
The idea that monopolies in markets with easy entry need not be regulated against is known
as the "revolution in monopoly theory".[25]
A monopolist can extract only one premium,[clarification needed] and getting into complementary
markets does not pay. That is, the total profits a monopolist could earn if it sought to leverage its
monopoly in one market by monopolizing a complementary market are equal to the extra profits
it could earn anyway by charging more for the monopoly product itself. However, the one
monopoly profit theorem does not hold true if customers in the monopoly good are stranded or
poorly informed, or if the tied good has high fixed costs.
A pure monopoly follows the same economic rationality of firms under perfect competition, i.e.
to optimize a profit function given some constraints. Under the assumptions of increasing
marginal costs, exogenous inputs' prices, and control concentrated on a single agent or
entrepreneur, the optimal decision is to equate the marginal cost and marginal revenue of
production. Nonetheless, a pure monopoly can -unlike a competitive firm- alter the market price
for her own convenience: a decrease in the level of production results in a higher price. In the
economics' jargon, it is said that pure monopolies "face a downward-sloping demand". An
important consequence of such behavior is worth noticing: typically a monopoly selects a higher
price and lower quantity of output than a price-taking firm; again, less is available at a higher
price.[26]
There are important points for one to remember when considering the monopoly model diagram
(and its associated conclusions) displayed here. The result that monopoly prices are higher, and
production output lower, than a competitive firm follow from a requirement that the monopoly
not charge different prices for different customers. That is, the monopoly is restricted from
engaging in price discrimination (this is called first degree price discrimination, where all
customers are charged the same amount). If the monopoly were permitted to charge
individualized prices (this is called third degree price discrimination), the quantity produced, and
the price charged to the marginal customer, would be identical to a competitive firm, thus
eliminating the deadweight loss; however, all gains from trade (social welfare) would accrue to
the monopolist and none to the consumer. In essence, every consumer would be just indifferent
between (1) going completely without the product or service and (2) being able to purchase it
from the monopolist.
As long as the price elasticity of demand for most customers is less than one in absolute value, it
is advantageous for a firm to increase its prices: it then receives more money for fewer goods.
With a price increase, price elasticity tends to rise, and in the optimum case above it will be
greater than one for most customers.
Monopoly and efficiency
According to the standard model,[citation needed] in which a monopolist sets a single price for all
consumers, the monopolist will sell a lower quantity of goods at a higher price than would firms
under perfect competition. Because the monopolist ultimately forgoes transactions with
consumers who value the product or service more than its cost, monopoly pricing creates a
deadweight loss referring to potential gains that went neither to the monopolist or to consumers.
Given the presence of this deadweight loss, the combined surplus (or wealth) for the monopolist
and consumers is necessarily less than the total surplus obtained by consumers under perfect
competition. Where efficiency is defined by the total gains from trade, the monopoly setting is
less efficient than perfect competition.
It is often argued that monopolies tend to become less efficient and innovative over time,
becoming "complacent giants", because they do not have to be efficient or innovative to compete
in the marketplace. Sometimes this very loss of psychological efficiency can raise a potential
competitor's value enough to overcome market entry barriers, or provide incentive for research
and investment into new alternatives. The theory of contestable markets argues that in some
circumstances (private) monopolies are forced to behave as if there were competition because of
the risk of losing their monopoly to new entrants. This is likely to happen where a market's
barriers to entry are low. It might also be because of the availability in the longer term of
substitutes in other markets. For example, a canal monopoly, while worth a great deal in the late
eighteenth century United Kingdom, was worth much less in the late nineteenth century because
of the introduction of railways as a substitute.
[edit] Law
Main article: Competition law
The existence of a very high market share does not always mean consumers are paying excessive
prices since the threat of new entrants to the market can restrain a high-market-share firm's price
increases. Competition law does not make merely having a monopoly illegal, but rather abusing
the power a monopoly may confer, for instance through exclusionary practices.
Under EU law, very large market shares raises a presumption that a firm is dominant,[32] which
may be rebuttable.[33] If a firm has a dominant position, then there is "a special responsibility not
to allow its conduct to impair competition on the common market".[34] The lowest yet market
share of a firm considered "dominant" in the EU was 39.7%.[35]
Certain categories of abusive conduct are usually prohibited under the country's legislation,
though the lists are seldom closed.[36] The main recognized categories are:
Limiting supply
Predatory pricing
Price discrimination
Refusal to deal and exclusive dealing
Tying (commerce) and product bundling
Despite wide agreement that the above constitute abusive practices, there is some debate about
whether there needs to be a causal connection between the dominant position of a company and
its actual abusive conduct. Furthermore, there has been some consideration of what happens
when a firm merely attempts to abuse its dominant position.
The term "monopoly" first appears in Aristotle's Politics, wherein Aristotle describes Thales of
Miletus' cornering of the market in olive presses as a monopoly (μονοπωλίαν).[37][38]
Common salt (sodium chloride) historically gave rise to natural monopolies. Until recently, a
combination of strong sunshine and low humidity or an extension of peat marshes was necessary
for winning salt from the sea, the most plentiful source. Changing sea levels periodically caused
salt "famines" and communities were forced to depend upon those who controlled the scarce
inland mines and salt springs, which were often in hostile areas (the Sahara desert) requiring
well-organized security for transport, storage, and distribution. The "Gabelle", a notoriously high
tax levied upon salt, played a role in the start of the French Revolution, when strict legal controls
were in place over who was allowed to sell and distribute salt.
Robin Gollan argues in The Coalminers of New South Wales that anti-competitive practices
developed in the Newcastle coal industry as a result of the business cycle. The monopoly was
generated by formal meetings of the local management of coal companies agreeing to fix a
minimum price for sale at dock. This collusion was known as "The Vend." The Vend collapsed
and was reformed repeatedly throughout the late nineteenth century, cracking under recession in
the business cycle. "The Vend" was able to maintain its monopoly due to trade union support,
and material advantages (primarily coal geography). In the early twentieth century as a result of
comparable monopolistic practices in the Australian coastal shipping business, the vend took on
a new form as an informal and illegal collusion between the steamship owners and the coal
industry, eventually going to the High Court as Adelaide Steamship Co. Ltd v. R. & AG.[39]
A monopoly can seldom be established within a country without overt and covert government
assistance in the form of a tariff or some other device. It is close to impossible to do so on a
world scale. The De Beers diamond monopoly is the only one we know of that appears to have
succeeded. - - In a world of free trade, international cartels would disappear even more quickly.
[45]
On the other hand, professor Steve H. Hanke believes that although private monopolies are more
efficient than public ones, often by factor two, sometimes private natural monopolies, such as
local water distribution, should be regulated (not prohibited) through, e.g., price auctions[46].
Bilateral monopoly
Complementary monopoly
Demonopolization
Duopoly
Flag carrier
History of monopoly
Monopolistic competition
Monopsony
Oligopoly
Ramsey problem, a policy rule concerning what price a monopolist should set
Simulations and games in economics education that model monopolistic markets
[edit] Criticism
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