Imperfect competition of differentiated products that are not perfect substitutes
Short-run equilibrium of the company under monopolistic competition. The company maximises its profits and produces a quantity where the company's marginal revenue (MR) is equal to its marginal cost (MC). The company is able to collect a price based on the average revenue (AR) curve. The difference between the company's average revenue and average cost, multiplied by the quantity sold (Qs), gives the total profit. A short-run monopolistic competition equilibrium graph has the same properties of a monopoly equilibrium graph.Long-run equilibrium of the firm under monopolistic competition. The company still produces where marginal cost and marginal revenue are equal; however, the demand curve (MR and AR) has shifted as other companies entered the market and increased competition. The company no longer sells its goods above average cost and can no longer claim an economic profit.
Monopolistic competition is a type of imperfect competition such that there are many producers competing against each other but selling products that are differentiated from one another (e.g., branding, quality) and hence not perfect substitutes. In monopolistic competition, a company takes the prices charged by its rivals as given and ignores the impact of its own prices on the prices of other companies.[1][2] If this happens in the presence of a coercive government, monopolistic competition will fall into government-granted monopoly. Unlike perfect competition, the company maintains spare capacity. Models of monopolistic competition are often used to model industries. Textbook examples of industries with market structures similar to monopolistic competition include restaurants, cereals, clothing, shoes, and service industries in large cities. The "founding father" of the theory of monopolistic competition is Edward Hastings Chamberlin, who wrote a pioneering book on the subject, Theory of Monopolistic Competition (1933).[3]Joan Robinson's book The Economics of Imperfect Competition presents a comparable theme of distinguishing perfect from imperfect competition. Further work on monopolistic competition was undertaken by Dixit and Stiglitz who created the Dixit-Stiglitz model which has proved applicable used in the sub fields of international trade theory, macroeconomics and economic geography.
The principal goal of the company is to maximise its profits.
Factor prices and technology are given.
A company is assumed to behave as if it knew its demand and cost curves with certainty.
The decision regarding price and output of any company does not affect the behaviour of other companies in a group, i.e., impact of the decision made by a single company is spread sufficiently evenly across the entire group. Thus, there is no conscious rivalry among the company.
Each company earns only normal profit in the long run.
Each company spends substantial amount on advertisement. The publicity and advertisement costs are known as selling costs.
The long-run characteristics of a monopolistically competitive market are almost the same as a perfectly competitive market. Two differences between the two are that monopolistic competition produces heterogeneous products and that monopolistic competition involves a great deal of non-price competition, which is based on subtle product differentiation. A firm making profits in the short run will nonetheless only break even in the long run because demand will decrease and average total cost will increase, meaning that in the long run, a monopolistically competitive company will make zero economic profit. This illustrates the amount of influence the company has over the market; because of brand loyalty, it can raise its prices without losing all of its customers. This means that an individual company's demand curve is downward sloping, in contrast to perfect competition, which has a perfectly elastic demand schedule.
Characteristics
There are eight characteristics of monopolistic competition (MC):
Firms are price setters
Free movement of resources from one firm to another
Buyers and sellers do not have perfect information[5][6]
Product differentiation
MC companies sell products that have real or perceived non-price differences. Examples of these differences could include physical aspects of the product, location from which it sells the product or intangible aspects of the product, among others.[7] However, the differences are not so great as to eliminate other goods as substitutes. In technical terms, the cross price elasticity of demand between goods in such a market is large and positive.[8] MC goods are best described as close but imperfect substitutes.[8] The goods perform the same basic functions but have differences in qualities such as type, style, quality, reputation, appearance, and location that tend to distinguish them from each other. For example, the basic function of motor vehicles is the same—to move people and objects from point to point in reasonable comfort and safety. Yet there are many different types of motor vehicles such as motor scooters, motor cycles, trucks and cars, and many variations even within these categories.
Many companies
There are many companies in each MC product group and many companies on the side lines prepared to enter the market. A product group is a "collection of similar products".[9] The fact that there are "many companies" means that each company has a small market share.[10] This gives each MC company the freedom to set prices without engaging in strategic decision making regarding the prices of other companies (no mutual independence) and each company's actions have a negligible impact on the market. For example, a company could cut prices and increase sales without fear that its actions will prompt retaliatory responses from competitors.
The number of companies that an MC market structure will support at market equilibrium depends on factors such as fixed costs, economies of scale, and the degree of product differentiation. For example, the higher the fixed costs, the fewer companies the market will support.[11]
Freedom of entry and exit
Like perfect competition, under monopolistic competition also, the companies can enter or exit freely. The companies will enter when the existing companies are making super-normal profits. With the entry of new companies, the supply would increase which would reduce the price and hence the existing companies will be left only with normal profits. Similarly, if the existing companies are sustaining losses, some of the marginal firms will exit. It will reduce the supply due to which price would rise and the existing firms will be left only with normal profit.
Independent decision-making
Each MC company independently sets the terms of exchange for its product.[12] The company gives no consideration to what effect its decision may have on its competitors.[12] The theory is that any action will have such a negligible effect on the overall market demand that an MC company can act without fear of prompting heightened competition. In other words, each company feels free to set prices as if it were a monopoly rather than an oligopoly.
Market power
MC companies have some degree of market power, although relatively low. Market power means that the company has control over the terms and conditions of exchange. All MC companies are price makers. An MC companies can raise its prices without losing all its customers. The company can also lower prices without triggering a potentially ruinous price war with competitors. The source of an MC company's market power is not barriers to entry since they are low. Rather, an MC company has market power because it has relatively few competitors, those competitors do not engage in strategic decision making and the companies sells differentiated product.[13] Market power also means that an MC company faces a downward sloping demand curve. In the long run, the demand curve is highly elastic, meaning that it is sensitive to price changes, although it is not completely "flat". In the short run, economic profit is positive, but it approaches zero in the long run.[14]
Imperfect information
No other sellers or buyers have complete market information, like market demand or market supply.[15]
There are two sources of inefficiency in the MC market structure. The first source of inefficiency is that, at its optimum output, the company charges a price that exceeds marginal costs. The MC company maximises profits where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Since the MC company's demand curve is downwards-sloping, the company will charge a price that exceeds marginal costs. The monopoly power possessed by a MC company means that at its profit-maximising level of production, there will be a net loss of consumer (and producer) surplus. The second source of inefficiency is the fact that MC companies operate with excess capacity. That is that the MC company's profit-maximising output is less than the output associated with minimum average cost. Both an MC and PC company will operate at a point where demand or price equals average cost. For a PC company, this equilibrium condition occurs where the perfectly elastic demand curve equals minimum average cost. An MC company's demand curve is not flat but is downward-sloping. Thus, the demand curve will be tangential to the long-run average cost curve at a point to the left of its minimum. The result is excess capacity.[22]
Socially undesirable aspects compared to perfect competition
Selling costs: Producers under monopolistic competition often spend substantial amounts on advertising and publicity. Much of this expenditure is wasteful from the social point of view. The producer can reduce the price of the product instead of spending on publicity.
Excess capacity: Under imperfect competition, the installed capacity of every firm is large but not fully used. Total output is, therefore, less than the output which is socially desirable. Since production capacity is not fully used, the resources lie idle. Therefore, the production under monopolistic competition is below the full capacity level.
Unemployment: Idle capacity under monopolistic competition expenditure leads to unemployment. In particular, unemployment of workers leads to poverty and misery in the society. If idle capacity is fully used, the problem of unemployment can be solved to some extent.
Cross transport: Under monopolistic competition expenditure is incurred on cross transportation. If the goods are sold locally, wasteful expenditure on cross transport could be avoided.
Lack of specialisation: Under monopolistic competition, there is little scope for specialisation or standardisation. Product differentiation practised under this competition leads to wasteful expenditure. It is argued that instead of producing too many similar products, only a few standardised products may be produced. This would ensure better allocation of resources and would promote the economic success of the society.
Inefficiency: Under perfect competition, an inefficient company is thrown out of the industry. But under monopolistic competition, inefficient companies continue to survive.
Problems
Monopolistically-competitive companies are inefficient, it is usually the case that the costs of regulating prices for products sold in monopolistic competition exceed the benefits of such regulation.[23] A monopolistically-competitive company might be said to be marginally inefficient because the company produces at an output where average total cost is not a minimum. A monopolistically competitive market is a productively inefficient market structure because marginal cost is less than price in the long run. Monopolistically-competitive markets are also allocative-inefficient, as the company charges prices that exceed marginal cost. Product differentiation increases total utility by better meeting people's wants than homogenous products in a perfectly competitive market.[23]
Another concern is that monopolistic competition fosters advertising. There are two main ways to conceive how advertising works under a monopolistic competition framework. Advertising can cause either a company's perceived demand curve to become more inelastic or demand for the company's product to increase. In either case, a successful advertising campaign may allow a company to sell a greater quantity or to charge a higher price, or both, and thus increase its profits.[24] This allows the creation of brand names. Advertising induces customers into spending more on products because of the name associated with them rather than because of rational factors. Defenders of advertising dispute this, arguing that brand names can represent a guarantee of quality and that advertising helps reduce the cost to consumers of weighing the trade-offs of numerous competing brands. There are unique information and information processing costs associated with selecting a brand in a monopolistically competitive environment. In a monopoly market, the consumer is faced with a single brand, making information gathering relatively inexpensive. In a perfectly competitive industry, the consumer is faced with many brands, but because the brands are virtually identical information gathering is also relatively inexpensive. In a monopolistically competitive market, the consumer must collect and process information on a large number of different brands to be able to select the best of them. In many cases, the cost of gathering information necessary to selecting the best brand can exceed the benefit of consuming the best brand instead of a randomly selected brand. The result is that the consumer is confused. Some brands gain prestige value and can extract an additional price for that.
Evidence suggests that consumers use information obtained from advertising not only to assess the single brand advertised, but also to infer the possible existence of brands that the consumer has, heretofore, not observed, as well as to infer consumer satisfaction with brands similar to the advertised brand.[25]
↑ Gans, Joshua; King, Stephen; Stonecash, Robin; Mankiw, N. Gregory (2003). Principles of Economics. Thomson Learning. ISBN0-17-011441-4.
↑ Goodwin, N.; Nelson, J.; Ackerman, F.; Weisskopf, T. (2009). Microeconomics in Context (2nded.). Sharpe. p.317. ISBN978-0-7656-2301-0.
↑ Hirschey, M. (2000). Managerial Economics (Rev.ed.). Fort Worth: Dryden. p.443. ISBN0-03-025649-6.
↑ Klingensmith, J. Zachary (26 August 2019), "Monopolistic Competition", Introduction to Microeconomics, Affordable Course Transformation: The Pennsylvania State University, retrieved 1 November 2020
↑ The company has not reached full capacity or minimum efficient scale. Minimum efficient scale is the level of production at which the long-run average cost curve first reaches its minimum. It is the point where the LRATC curve "begins to bottom out." Perloff, J. (2008). Microeconomics Theory & Applications with Calculus. Boston: Pearson. pp.483–484. ISBN978-0-321-27794-7.
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics focuses on the study of individual markets, sectors, or industries as opposed to the national economy as a whole, which is studied in macroeconomics.
A monopoly, as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly and duopoly which consists of a few sellers dominating a market. Monopolies are thus characterised by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb monopolise or monopolize refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. 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 overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises. 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.
An oligopoly is a market in which control over an industry lies in the hands of a few large sellers who own a dominant share of the market. Oligopolistic markets have homogenous products, few market participants, and inelastic demand for the products in those industries. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function. Firms in an oligopoly are also mutually interdependent, as any action by one firm is expected to affect other firms in the market and evoke a reaction or consequential action. As a result, firms in oligopolistic markets often resort to collusion as means of maximising profits.
In economics, specifically general equilibrium theory, a perfect market, also known as an atomistic market, is defined by several idealizing conditions, collectively called perfect competition, or atomistic competition. In theoretical models where conditions of perfect competition hold, it has been demonstrated that a market will reach an equilibrium in which the quantity supplied for every product or service, including labor, equals the quantity demanded at the current price. This equilibrium would be a Pareto optimum.
In economics, imperfect competition refers to a situation where the characteristics of an economic market do not fulfil all the necessary conditions of a perfectly competitive market. Imperfect competition causes market inefficiencies, resulting in market failure. Imperfect competition usually describes behaviour of suppliers in a market, such that the level of competition between sellers is below the level of competition in perfectly competitive market conditions.
A two-part tariff (TPT) is a form of price discrimination wherein the price of a product or service is composed of two parts – a lump-sum fee as well as a per-unit charge. In general, such a pricing technique only occurs in partially or fully monopolistic markets. It is designed to enable the firm to capture more consumer surplus than it otherwise would in a non-discriminating pricing environment. Two-part tariffs may also exist in competitive markets when consumers are uncertain about their ultimate demand. Health club consumers, for example, may be uncertain about their level of future commitment to an exercise regimen. Two-part tariffs are easy to implement when connection or entrance fees can be charged along with a price per unit consumed.
Price discrimination is a microeconomic pricing strategy where identical or largely similar goods or services are sold at different prices by the same provider in different market segments. Price discrimination is distinguished from product differentiation by the more substantial difference in production cost for the differently priced products involved in the latter strategy. Price discrimination essentially relies on the variation in the customers' willingness to pay and in the elasticity of their demand. For price discrimination to succeed, a firm must have market power, such as a dominant market share, product uniqueness, sole pricing power, etc. All prices under price discrimination are higher than the equilibrium price in a perfectly competitive market. However, some prices under price discrimination may be lower than the price charged by a single-price monopolist. Price discrimination is utilized by the monopolist to recapture some deadweight loss. This Pricing strategy enables firms to capture additional consumer surplus and maximize their profits while benefiting some consumers at lower prices. Price discrimination can take many forms and is prevalent in many industries, from education and telecommunications to healthcare.
In economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit. In neoclassical economics, which is currently the mainstream approach to microeconomics, the firm is assumed to be a "rational agent" which wants to maximize its total profit, which is the difference between its total revenue and its total cost.
In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have not had to incur. Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy. Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies, or give companies market power. Barriers of entry also have an importance in industries. First of all it is important to identify that some exist naturally, such as brand loyalty. Governments can also create barriers to entry to meet consumer protection laws, protecting the public. In other cases it can also be due to inherent scarcity of public resources needed to enter a market.
Monopoly profit is an inflated level of profit due to the monopolistic practices of an enterprise.
In microeconomics, substitute goods are two goods that can be used for the same purpose by consumers. That is, a consumer perceives both goods as similar or comparable, so that having more of one good causes the consumer to desire less of the other good. Contrary to complementary goods and independent goods, substitute goods may replace each other in use due to changing economic conditions. An example of substitute goods is Coca-Cola and Pepsi; the interchangeable aspect of these goods is due to the similarity of the purpose they serve, i.e. fulfilling customers' desire for a soft drink. These types of substitutes can be referred to as close substitutes.
In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market power occurs if a firm does not face a perfectly elastic demand curve and can set its price (P) above marginal cost (MC) without losing revenue. This indicates that the magnitude of market power is associated with the gap between P and MC at a firm's profit maximising level of output. The size of the gap, which encapsulates the firm's level of market dominance, is determined by the residual demand curve's form. A steeper reverse demand indicates higher earnings and more dominance in the market. Such propensities contradict perfectly competitive markets, where market participants have no market power, P = MC and firms earn zero economic profit. Market participants in perfectly competitive markets are consequently referred to as 'price takers', whereas market participants that exhibit market power are referred to as 'price makers' or 'price setters'.
Marginal revenue is a central concept in microeconomics that describes the additional total revenue generated by increasing product sales by 1 unit. Marginal revenue is the increase in revenue from the sale of one additional unit of product, i.e., the revenue from the sale of the last unit of product. It can be positive or negative. Marginal revenue is an important concept in vendor analysis. To derive the value of marginal revenue, it is required to examine the difference between the aggregate benefits a firm received from the quantity of a good and service produced last period and the current period with one extra unit increase in the rate of production. Marginal revenue is a fundamental tool for economic decision making within a firm's setting, together with marginal cost to be considered.
Non-price competition is a marketing strategy "in which one firm tries to distinguish its product or service from competing products on the basis of attributes like design and workmanship". It often occurs in imperfectly competitive markets because it exists between two or more producers that sell goods and services at the same prices but compete to increase their respective market shares through non-price measures such as marketing schemes and greater quality. It is a form of competition that requires firms to focus on product differentiation instead of pricing strategies among competitors. Such differentiation measures allowing for firms to distinguish themselves, and their products from competitors, may include, offering superb quality of service, extensive distribution, customer focus, or any sustainable competitive advantage other than price. When price controls are not present, the set of competitive equilibria naturally correspond to the state of natural outcomes in Hatfield and Milgrom's two-sided matching with contracts model.
Market structure, in economics, depicts how firms are differentiated and categorised based on the types of goods they sell (homogeneous/heterogeneous) and how their operations are affected by external factors and elements. Market structure makes it easier to understand the characteristics of diverse markets.
In economics, competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place. In classical economic thought, competition causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater the selection of a good is in the market, the lower prices for the products typically are, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly).
Edward Hastings Chamberlin was an American economist. He was born in La Conner, Washington, and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Within economics, margin is a concept used to describe the current level of consumption or production of a good or service. Margin also encompasses various concepts within economics, denoted as marginal concepts, which are used to explain the specific change in the quantity of goods and services produced and consumed. These concepts are central to the economic theory of marginalism. This is a theory that states that economic decisions are made in reference to incremental units at the margin, and it further suggests that the decision on whether an individual or entity will obtain additional units of a good or service depends on the marginal utility of the product.
In economics, profit is the difference between revenue that an economic entity has received from its outputs and total costs of its inputs, also known as surplus value. It is equal to total revenue minus total cost, including both explicit and implicit costs.
In microeconomics, a monopoly price is set by a monopoly. A monopoly occurs when a firm lacks any viable competition and is the sole producer of the industry's product. Because a monopoly faces no competition, it has absolute market power and can set a price above the firm's marginal cost.
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