Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), 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.[1] 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.[2] 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 a decrease in social surplus.[3] 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).[3]
This article is about the economic term. For the board game based on this concept, see Monopoly (game). For other uses, see Monopoly (disambiguation).
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, monopsonies and oligopolies are all situations in which one or a few entities have market power and therefore interact with their customers (monopoly or oligopoly), or suppliers (monopsony) in ways that distort the market.
Monopolies can be formed by mergers and integrations, form naturally, or be established by a government. In many jurisdictions, competition laws restrict monopolies due to government concerns over potential adverse effects. Holding a dominant position or a monopoly in a market is often not illegal in itself; however, certain categories of behavior can be considered abusive and therefore incur legal sanctions when business is dominant. A government-granted monopoly or legal monopoly, by contrast, is sanctioned by the state, often to provide an incentive to invest in a risky venture or enrich a domestic interest group. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are sometimes used as examples of government-granted monopolies. The government may also reserve the venture for itself, thus forming a government monopoly, for example with a state-owned company.
Monopolies may be naturally occurring due to limited competition because the industry is resource intensive and requires substantial costs to operate (e.g., certain railroad systems).[4]
Market structure is determined by following factors:
In economics, the idea of monopolies is important in the study of management structures, which directly concerns normative aspects of economic competition, and provides the basis for topics such as industrial organization and economics of regulation. There are four basic types of market structures in traditional economic analysis: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly. A monopoly is a structure in which a single supplier produces and sells a given product or service. If there is a single seller in a certain market and there are no close substitutes for the product, then the market structure is that of a "pure monopoly". Sometimes, there are many sellers in an industry or there exist many close substitutes for the goods being produced, but nevertheless, companies retain some market power. This is termed "monopolistic competition", whereas in an oligopoly, the companies interact strategically.
In general, the main results from this theory compare the price-fixing methods across market structures, analyze the effect of a certain structure on welfare, and vary technological or demand assumptions in order to assess the consequences for an abstract model of society. Most economic textbooks follow the practice of carefully explaining the "perfect competition" model, mainly because this helps to understand departures from it (the so-called "imperfect competition" models).
The boundaries of what constitutes a market and what does not are relevant distinctions to make in economic analysis. In a general equilibrium context, a good is a specific concept including geographical and time-related characteristics. Most studies of market structure relax a little their definition of a good, allowing for more flexibility in the identification of substitute goods.
A monopoly has at least one of these five characteristics:
Monopolies derive their market power from barriers to entry – circumstances that prevent or greatly impede a potential competitor's ability to compete in a market. There are three major types of barriers to entry: economic, legal, and deliberate.[7]
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 company to end its involvement with a market. High liquidation costs are a primary barrier to exiting.[15] Market exit and shutdown are sometimes separate events. The decision of whether to shut down or operate is not affected by exit barriers. A company will shut down if the price falls below minimum average variable costs.
: A PC company maximizes profits by producing such that price equals marginal costs. A monopoly maximises profits by producing where marginal revenue equals marginal costs.[23] The rules are not equivalent. The demand curve for a PC company 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 (). Thus the price line is also identical to the demand curve. In sum, .
Profit maximization
While monopoly and perfect competition mark the intensity of market structures[16] there is some similarity. The cost functions are the same.[17] Both monopolies and perfectly competitive (PC) companies minimize cost and maximize profit. The shutdown decisions are the same. Both are assumed to have perfectly competitive factors markets. There are distinctions, some of the most important distinctions are as follows:
The most significant distinction between a PC company and a monopoly is that the monopoly has a downward-sloping demand curve rather than the "perceived" perfectly elastic curve of the PC company.[29] Practically all the variations mentioned above 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 . Then the total revenue curve is and the marginal revenue curve is thus . From this several things are evident. First, the marginal revenue curve has the same -intercept as the inverse demand curve. Second, the slope of the marginal revenue curve is twice that of the inverse demand curve. What is not quite so evident is that the marginal revenue curve is below the inverse demand curve at all points ().[29] Since all companies maximise profits by equating and 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.
The fact that a monopoly has a downward-sloping demand curve means that the relationship between total revenue and output for a monopoly is much different from that of competitive companies.[30] Total revenue equals price times quantity. A competitive company has a perfectly elastic demand curve meaning that total revenue is proportional to output.[30] Thus the total revenue curve for a competitive company is a ray with a slope equal to the market price.[30] A competitive company can sell all the output it desires at the market price. For a monopoly to increase sales it must reduce price. Thus the total revenue curve for a monopoly is a parabola that begins at the origin and reaches a maximum value then continuously decreases until total revenue is again zero.[31] Total revenue has its maximum value when the slope of the total revenue function is zero. The slope of the total revenue function is marginal revenue. So the revenue maximizing quantity and price occur when . For example, assume that the monopoly's demand function is . The total revenue function would be and marginal revenue would be . Setting marginal revenue equal to zero we have
So the revenue maximizing quantity for the monopoly is 12.5 units and the revenue-maximizing price is 25.
A company with a monopoly does not experience price pressure from competitors, although it may experience pricing pressure from potential competition. If a company increases prices too much, then others may enter the market if they are able to provide the same good, or a substitute, at a lesser price.[32] The idea that monopolies in markets with easy entry need not be regulated against is known as the "revolution in monopoly theory".[33]
A monopolist can extract only one premium, 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 is not true if customers in the monopoly good are stranded or poorly informed, or if the tied good has high fixed costs.
A pure monopoly has the same economic rationality of perfectly competitive companies, i.e. to optimise a profit function given some constraints. By 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 company – alter the market price for its own convenience: a decrease of production results in a higher price. In the economics' jargon, it is said that pure monopolies have "a downward-sloping demand". An important consequence of such behaviour is that typically a monopoly selects a higher price and lesser quantity of output than a price-taking company; again, less is available at a higher price.[34]
Monopolist shutdown rule[edit]
A monopolist should shut down when price is less than average variable cost for every output level[14] – in other words where the demand curve is entirely below the average variable cost curve.[14] Under these circumstances at the profit maximum level of output (MR = MC) average revenue would be less than average variable costs and the monopolists would be better off shutting down in the short term.[14]
Historical monopolies[edit]
Origin[edit]
The term "monopoly" first appears in Aristotle's Politics. Aristotle describes Thales of Miletus's cornering of the market in olive presses as a monopoly (μονοπώλιον).[90][91] Another early reference to the concept of "monopoly" in a commercial sense appears in tractate Demai of the Mishna (2nd century CE), regarding the purchasing of agricultural goods from a dealer who has a monopoly on the produce (chapter 5; 4).[92] The meaning and understanding of the English word 'monopoly' has changed over the years.[93]
