ANSWERS TO End-of chapter QUESTIONS AND exercises Essay example

The following case study is in regards of economic market structure. In the world of economics all businesses or companies rather, are categorized in certain market structures such as monopoly, oligopoly, or perfect competition, for instance, the market structure for restaurants. Most restaurants are considered monopolistic competition. Being that they all sell and serve food. They have to have instances that vary such as price, logos, servers, locations, décor, types of food, and hospitality.

Oligopolistic markets, such as supermarkets or car manufacturing, can be defined in terms of market structure or in terms of market conduct.

There are different classifications of markets and the structure of a business determines which classification it will fall into. Markets are divided according to the composition of the business and what it provides to the specific market. Business composition is determined by the structure of market characteristics, and this helps determine level and area of competition. The characteristics in a market with the most concentration focus on number of purchasers and retailers, level in which a product has a substitute, price,

The organization and characteristics of a specific market where a company operates is referred to as market structure. While markets can basically be classified by their degree of competitiveness and pricing, there are four types of markets i.e. perfect competition, monopolistic competition, monopoly, and oligopoly. In perfect competition markets, many firms are price takers whereas monopolistic competition markets are characterized by the ability of some firms to have market power. In contrast, oligopoly markets are those in which few firms can be price makers while monopoly market is where one firm can be a price maker.

In the short run the perfect competition equilibrium can be found by graphing the marginal cost (MC), average total cost (ATC) and marginal revenue (MR) curves. In perfect competition the price is equal to the average revenue, which is equal to the marginal revenue and these are all constant, giving an infinitely elastic demand curve for the firm. The demand curve is “perfectly price elastic” due to the homogeneity of the products supplied, where each supplier, as a price taker, must focus on a single price. Given this, the only choice a supplier has in the short run is how much to produce. For profit maximisation to occur marginal costs (supply curve) must equal marginal revenue (demand curve). Profit maximisation is assumed to mean the maximisation of normal economic profit (i.e. revenue that covers the

Since there are so many producers in a perfect competition market, consumers are able to be price makers and there is ample opportunity for firms to compete for their business. Consider the below graph depicting the natural efficient price equilibrium and the firm’s optimal output in the short run. The market may demand a quantity of a product where the usual efficient market would consume at the marginal revenue= marginal cost (MR=MC)

In differentiating between market structures one has to compare and contrast public goods, private goods, common resources, and natural monopolies. All of these are major factors that need to be considered.

Market structure is when an industry has a number of firms making identical products. An industry’s market structure depends on the how many firms are in that in industry and how they will compete in the market.

This process continues until each firm’s demand curve eventually becomes tangent to the firm’s average cost curve as the graph below describes. The dynamics of Monopolistic competition is whereby a firm’s demand curve continuously shifts leftward as new firms enter the market until in equilibrium, monopolistically competitive firms no longer make any economic profit.

The model of monopolistic competition describes a common market structure in which firms have many competitors, but each one sells a slightly different product. If there was no differentiation, the competition would turn into perfect competition. In effect, monopolistic competition is something of a hybrid between perfect competition and monopoly. Comparable to perfect competition, monopolistic competition contains a large number of extremely competitive firms. However, comparable to monopoly, each firm has market control and faces a negatively-sloped demand curve. Monopolistic competition as a market structure was first

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.

Firms within the fast food industry fall under the market structure of perfect competition. Market structure is a classification system for the key traits of a market. The characteristics of perfect competition include: large number of buyers and sellers, easy entry to and exit from the market, homogeneous products, and the firm is the price taker. Many fast food franchises fit all or most of these characteristics.

Different market structures are basically compared by the number of competing firms and the extent of entry barriers.

Market structures under study are ones which are more pronounced than others in the real world i.e. ‘Monopolistic competition’ and ‘Oligopoly’.

Efficiency – comparison of what is produced with what can be achieve with the same consumption of resources (money,