A Monopoly is One Supplier and Numerous Buyers

For my research paper I decided to write about monopolies. I chose to write about monopolies because I wanted to learn more about them. No this type of monopoly is not a board game in which consumers engage in buying houses or property with fake money. Instead this type of monopoly is a firm that is the only seller of a good or service that does not have a close substitute. An example of a monopoly is natural gas company or Time Warner Cable or Microsoft and its Windows operating system. Although few people like monopolies and even though few companies are monopolies, the model of a monopoly can be useful. You see a monopoly is useful in analyzing situations in which firms agree to act together as if they were a monopoly. Monopolies are not illegal in the United States. What is illegal is actions taken by monopolies to limit competition. But there are times when one supplier in a market is better than a competitive market? Should the government work to protect that one supplier in a market?

A flawlessly competitive market has several different representatives selling the exact same products. These representatives are considered to be price takers in reference to the competition. Price takers are firms that have no market power. They simply have to take the market price as given (Lumen, 2017). A monopoly starts when a single company sells a product that cannot be reproduced. Microsoft is a perfect example of a company that is seen as a monopoly due to its control of the operating systems market.

United States vs. Microsoft is one the largest, most controversial antitrust lawsuits in American history. Many claim the government is wrongly punishing Microsoft for being innovative and successful, arguing that Windows dominates the market because of the product’s popularity, not because of malpractice by the parent company. Others argue in favor of the government, claiming that Microsoft’s practices conflict with the free market ideal. There are many arguments for both sides of the lawsuit, but what the case really comes down to is this: does the government have the right to interfere in today’s marketplace? Or is Microsoft violating laws that are rightfully imposed by the government?

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]

Individual firm’s market share is tiny compared to the other three market powers, such as monopolistic, oligopoly, and pure monopoly. In a perfect competition system the type of products are homogenous, so each competitor would be selling the same product or service. There is also no barrier to entry so firms can enter and exit the market freely without barriers from regulation or cost.

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

(1)Perfect competition is the market in which there is a large number of buyers and sellers. The goods sold in this market are identical. A single price prevails in the market. On the other hand monopoly is a type of

There are four types of market structures: Monopolistic Competition, Monopoly, Oligopoly, and Perfect Competition. Monopolistic Competition is also known as competitive market. In this market structure, there are a large number of firms that produce similar but somewhat differentiated products for the same target customers. The market share is also divided among large number of firms making it difficult for one firm to become the market leader. On the other hand, Monopoly is a type of market structure in which only one firm controls the whole industry. There are strict barriers to entry for new firms due to governmental restrictions or the monopolistic power of the firm itself. In Oligopoly, the whole industry is dominated by a few large scale firms that set prices, introduce innovative products, and use heavy campaigns to attract buyers. All other small scale firms follow the changing market patterns set by these oligopolistic firms. Lastly, perfect competition is a market structure in which there are a larger number of firms that produce similar as well as differentiated products for

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.

At one end is perfect competition where there are very many firms competing against each other. Every firm is so tiny in relation to the entire trade that has no power to manipulate price. It is a ‘price taker’. At the other end is monopoly, where there is just a single firm in the industry, and for this reason no competition from inside the industry.

The coffee shop industry is a monopolistically competitive market; this entails a market situation where there are a lot of large companies competing, but each company has some degree of market power, being able to determine its own price and ergo have an insignificantly small share of the market (low concentration). A monopolistically competitive market besides being a perfect competition has its characteristics of a monopoly too. (imperfect competition). (Monopoly is a market situation where a single company has most of the market for a certain type of product or service and often times accompany inflation of prices which deem inferior products over other companies.)

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

Perfect competition: in this competition, no participant dominates the market thus; no specific seller has the power to set the prices of homogeneous goods. This therefore makes the conditions of a perfect competitive market stricter than the rest of the market structures. In this market, AT&T should be willing to sell their services in a certain price that reciprocates to their demand to maximize profits.

One step away from perfect competition is monopolistic competition. This type of market structure has a number of different characteristics from the above. Which turn it into one of the most used market structures. In this scenario, companies are not all price takers and start making use of economies of scale in order to improve efficiency, reduce costs and increase profits. In the scenario companies sell a differentiated product at different prices. Like in perfect competition no barriers are put to entry and newcomers a constant threat to the market keeping every player always in search for a better mean to produce and compete.