Market structure refers to the amount of competition that exists in the market between producers. The degree of competition can be thought of as lying along a continuum with very competitive markets at the end and markets in which no competition exists at all at the other end. The different types of market structures are as follows: 1) Perfectly Perfect competition describes a market structure where competition is at its greatest possible level. To make it more clear, a market which exhibits the following characteristics in its structure is said to show perfect competition. Perfectly have the following characteristics: Have large number of firms. Products are homogenous (identical) so customers have no reason to express preference …show more content…
3) Monopoly Pure monopoly is where only one producer exists in the industry. In reality it rarely exists – always some form of substitute available. Monopoly exists, therefore, where one firm dominates the market. Forms may be investigated for examples of monopoly power when market share exceeds 25%. Summary of characteristics of firm exercising monopoly power would be: Price – could be deemed too high, may be set to destroy competition price discrimination possible. Efficiency – could be inefficient due to lack of competition or could be higher due to availability of high profits. 4) Oligopoly An oligopoly is a market structure in which a few firms dominate. When a market is shared between a few firms, it is said to be highly concentrated. Although only a few firms dominate, it is possible that many small firms may also operate in the market. Competition between the few may be a large number of firms in the industry but the industry is dominated by a small number of very large producers. Concentration ratio – the proportion of the total market sales (share) held by the top 3,4,5 etc of firms: It features of an oligopolistic market structure: Price may be relatively stable across the
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).
This organization belongs to the oligopoly market structure. The oligopoly market structure involves a few sellers of a standardized or differentiated product, a homogenous oligopoly or a differentiated oligopoly (McConnell, 2004, p. 467). In an oligopolistic market each firm is affected by the decisions of the other firms in the industry in determining their price and output (McConnell, 2005, P.413). Another factor of an oligopolistic market is the conditions of entry. In an oligopoly, there are significant barriers to entry into the market. These barriers exist because in these industries, three or four firms may have sufficient sales to achieve economies of scale, making the smaller firms would not be able to survive against the larger companies that control the industry (McConnell, 2005, p.
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
Market structure is classified according to the degree of competition firms encounter in their industry (Baker College, 2016). There are four main market structures: pure competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and a pure monopoly. Pure competition is where fir...
What is a perfectly competitive market? A perfectly competitive market is defined as something that occurs in an industry when that industry is made up of many small firms producing homogeneous products, when there are no impediment to the entry or exit of firms, and when full information is available (Baumol and Blinder, 200). In other words, when competition is at its greatest possible level, it describes a market structure in a perfect competition. A perfect competitive market consists of many buyers and sellers and therefore each buyer or seller is a price taker. All sellers tend to supply the same identical product. When four conditions are satisfied, a market is said to operate under perfect competition. We need to be able to define and explain the four conditions which are numerous small firms and customers, homogeneity of product, freedom of entry and exit, and perfect information.
If the demand for a product is low, then a customer will not be willing to pay a higher price, but if a product is in high demand, then a customer will be more willing to pay a higher price. Other factors may include location, age, and economic status. An example of price discrimination is the price of textbooks. Due to the copyright protection laws, the cost of textbooks in the United States are much higher than in other countries (Price). While price discrimination can be a bad thing, that is not always the case. An example of price discrimination that benefits consumers is age discounts. Often places like movie theaters and restaurants will have discounted items for customers like senior citizens or children. Another example is occupational discounts, such as military discount (Price). Price discrimination is commonly used in competitive markets to benefit businesses and consumers, but monopolies use it to benefit only themselves at a cost to
There are four different categories into which economists classify industries. These categories are perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Each of these four categories has its own unique characteristics. Perfect competition has an unlimited number of firms, while a monopoly has one single firm, and an oligopoly consists of a small number of interdependent firms. The demand curve of an oligopoly depends on how firms choose to deal with their interdependence with the other firms in the industry. A firm within an oligopoly market can choose to cooperate with other firms in the industry, which is illegal, or the firm can choose to compete against the other firms. An oligopoly produces either differentiated products or homogenous products. In an oligopolistic market, entry barriers, which prohibit new firms from entering the industry, are present. Examples of entry barriers include patents, brand loyalty and trademarks. Long-run economic profits are possible for an oligopoly, and non-price competition is a significant way to compete with other firms in the same market. Most of the non-price competition in an oligopoly comes from product differentiation. The cereal manufacturing industry is an oligopolistic market because it exhibits many of these traits.
Identify the firm, what it produces (products or services), and market structure (and rationale for why you think it belongs in your selected market structure category).
Economics can relate to competition as well as choice in the world of healthcare. For example market concentration in healthcare is when there are only a select few companies who produce and sell their products to the majority of the healthcare facilities around the country. In other words, these products may be limited and not many companies may make them, so selling them to most of healthcare facilities will create a larger selling market for them. Therefore, it is a useful economic tool because it reflects the degree of competition within the healthcare market. According to Riley (2011), “If concentration is low, than the industry is considered to be competitive and if the concentration is high, than the industry will be
Market structure is defined as the particular environment of a firm, the characteristics of which influence the firm’s pricing and output decisions. There are four theories of market structure. These theories are:
Market structure is defined by the number of sellers in the market, the buying and selling strength of these sellers and their ability to affect prices, the characteristics of the competition, the differentiation or otherwise of the products, and ease of entry into, or exit from, the marketplace.
The market, as known, wasis expected to be a perfect competition market which have a bunch of consumers and producers. People in the market have perfect knowledge about the free market, and every firm is tend to reach its maximum profit. No individual firms can affect the competition of the market.
Market structure can be defined as a “set of buyers and sellers, which decided the price of goods and services. The basis of market structure is the influence the behaviour which results in the firms working in that particular market”. (www.policonomics.com, 2014)
A market has a structure which is determined by the nature of competition in the market. Therefore, a market structure is decided by:
There is a range of different market structures that exist in an economic system. The main characteristics of each market vary depending on the industry and the companies related to that industry. Under a mixed economy, it is important for a business to understand what sort of market structure it operates in, as customers are able to choose among a wide range of products, directly affecting price, demand and supply levels. The main different types of market are known as perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly.