Differentiating Between Market Structures

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

Huges, N. (2011). Schools expect to have more iPads than computers in next 5 years. Retrieved

“Kudler Fine Foods was established in 1998 when Kathy Kudler fulfilled her vision of establishing her own gourmet food store. The La Jolla store continues to grow while the Del Mar store has been having some difficulties. The store in Encinitas has just opened, but sales seem brisk.” (Apollo, 2011, Strategic Plan, p. 3) The owner works 7 days a week and performs many jobs from purchasing to stocking shelves. Kudler Fine Foods sees itself outside of competition.

There are five market structures in economics and they are perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopolies, duopolies and monopolies. To determine the market structure of a firm, one must look at the industry and then evaluate the different characteristics - the main characteristics are the number of firms within the industry, the barriers to entry, how much market power the company has and what

Market structure is the physical characteristics of the market within which companies react. This means that there are different kinds of market structure based on how companies work together within a particular industry. Location and product have the most to do with determining the market structure. There are four defined market types. The first market structure is called the perfectly competitive market. The second market is called a monopoly market structure. The third market is called monopolistic competition market structure. The final market is called oligopoly market structure. Each market structure is different and both benefits and disadvantages

In the field of microeconomics, the market structure of an organization determines the performance of the organization within the industry. There are different types of market structures practiced today. Among these market structures include the perfect competition structure (Miller, Vandome, & McBrewster, 2009). In perfect competition structure, the competition happens between numerous small firms against each other. In this practice, there is optimum production by the firms socially at the minimum cost per unit possible. There is no barrier to entry in this structure, hence new companies and organizations can join easily. The

Policymakers can take certain steps to regulate and break up a monopoly if an abuse of power is taking place and individual governments determine what steps should be taken should a violation occur. Because monopolies have the market power to set prices higher than in competitive markets, the government can regulate pricing through a price cap, yardstick competition and by the prevention of the growth of monopoly

Using the virtual organization of Kudler Fine Foods, evaluations will be made to determine market structure and competitiveness. Kudler Fine Foods current strategic plan for 2003, marketing overview, and market surveys will provide information to evaluate how Kudler competes in its market and where its strengths and weaknesses are located. Based on the evaluation of Kudler Fine Foods an applicable market structure will be determined and the structures effects on the organization and its long-term profitability. Recommendations will be made for Kudler Fine Foods while comparing real-world organizations.

The natural monopolies have been subject to price controls by the government. The general aim of price regulation has been to protect consumers and ensure adequate output. For instance, in the case of a monopoly supplier of natural gas, once the pipes have been laid in an area, the marginal cost of adding an additional user is very low. With no regulation, the monopolist would produce where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. This is very inefficient, as the marginal cost will be less than price at the profit maximizing level of output. This implies that not enough service will be supplied and the price will be too high for some consumers to afford. Moreover, due to high economies of scale, it is hard to encourage competition.

There are several different market structures in which organisations can operate. The type of structure will influence a company’s behaviour and the level of profits it can generate. The structure of a market refers to the number of businesses in a market, their market shares and other features which affect the level of competition in the market. Structures are classified in term of the presence or absence of competition. When there is no competition, the market is said to be concentrated. A scale from perfect competition to monopoly can be found below.

There exists a condition that a corporation or a group owns all or almost all of the market for given a kind of product or service is called monopoly. By compassion, monopoly always provide the product with a very high price in order to maximum the profit. Today, many firms are enjoying a monopoly of their products or services in the market. Monopoly may be defined as the complete control over a commodity enjoyed by a particular company in the market. There will be only a solo manufacturer or provider of the commodity and customers have to depend on them whenever there is a demand since there are no substitutes available. As a result, such a manufacturer can have an absolute control over the price as well as quantity available in the

To generate additional usage opportunities, a marketing program can communicate the appropriateness and advantages of using the brand more frequently in new or existing situations and/or remind consumers to actually use the brand as close as possible to those situations. The wine industry launched a number of initiatives in the late 1990s to attract

would use their bargaining power to drive down the prices for beef, which would then open the

“Today, the forces of competition, technology, and globalization have converged to spur innovation and to transform the way business is done in the securities industry.” (Arthur Levitt) Market structure is best defined as the organization and other characteristics of a market. How a business succeeds is based on the market, they choose to enter into. Another tool to analyze a company’s market structure, which includes the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new competitors’ entering into the market, threat of substitutes and the intensity of competition. Some of the most important work in the development of economic theory is associated with the study market structure. From the perspective of a platform owner, when it owns part of the business on one side of the market, there are no straightforward answer as to whether having the rest of the business owned by another is advantageous or not. In my opinion a perfectly competition market is the best to open a business. I have outlined my thoughts and why a perfectly competitive market is the best market.

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