The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Monopolistic Competition

Competition is prevalent in various aspects of life, including sports, school, and jobs. Everyone at some point in their lifetime will have to compete against others in order to achieve a goal or earn a prize. It’s how the world has worked for a long time; it’s survival of the fittest and this minor competition between everyone is how we have continuously gotten smarter, faster, and stronger. Competition is necessary to a certain degree, but how much is too much? It’s definitely not a bad thing, and as long as there’s a healthy amount, it can be beneficial because it fosters self-improvement, and it will push people to go all out and try their absolute best.

Monopolistic competition involves many firms competing against each other, but selling products that are distinctive in some way. For instance, stores that sell different kinds of apparel; eating places or markets that sells a variety of food. You can even think about sporting goods and alcohol. These are items that may be similar to a certain extent, but totally different in terms of perception because of the brands, and how they are marketed. When merchandise is unique, firms can have a mini-monopoly on a certain style or a certain brand. However, the companies that make these products have to compete with other brand names. The term monopolistic competition captures this mixture of mini-monopoly and tough competition.

Monopolistic competition and Oligopoly are considered imperfectly competitive markets that are a result of few to many firms offering differentiated products. Differentiation of products impede substitution, which allow producers to earn higher than normal profits and thereby enhance shareholder wealth (Byrd, J., Hickman, K., & McPherson, M., 2013). Oligopolies are highly interdependent, with actions of one firm will resulting in a reaction from another. The interdependence results in higher efficiency as a necessity to compete with rivals. According to Claessens "greater development, lower costs, enhanced efficiency and a greater and wider supply resulting from competition will lead to greater [financial] access (2009).

Since colonial times, monopolies have been present in the United States’s economy. But as always, with time comes change, and that situation directly applies to the monopolies in this country. A monopoly is defined as the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes the manipulation of prices possible. Monopolies had a negative impact on the United States due their unfairness to consumers and laborers, they don’t allow for innovation, and they stifle all competition.

Firm under perfect competition and the firm under monopoly are similar as the aim of both the seller is to maximize profit and to minimize loss. The equilibrium position followed by both the monopoly and perfect competition is MR = MC. Despite their similarities, these two forms of market organization differ from each other in respect of price-cost-output. There are many points of difference which are noted below.

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

The monopolistic rivalry business structure incorporates numerous organizations offering somewhat separated items. There is a simple passage into the business sector by new firms over the long haul, and the organizations are sufficiently extensive to impact the aggregate supply. There are likewise various measurements of rivalry, including dissemination outlets, promoting, and item characteristics. The peripheral expense will be not exactly the cost at its benefit amplifying yield level. As indicated by the content, a monopolistic contender can't make long-run benefit (Colander, 2013).

Competition within the industry as well as market supply and demand conditions set the price of products sold.

It can help to pull customers’ needs and preferences in a direction where you want them to go, which is ideally away from the competition’s trends. This has a double effect of you taking market share from them, and making R&D pricier for the competition. It’s also riskier, because at an initial point you have make that same big expenditure yourself, and it may not work, or the competition is doing something equal or superior.

When companies are making decisions, the companies do not worry about how the rivals will react, in part to each company’s actions are unlikely to affect its rivals to a great extent hence they are independent. In addition, there is perfect knowledge in the market hence new companies have the freedom to enter into the industry. The companies are also profit maximizers, producing output where marginal revenue equals marginal cost; the profit maximising condition. Companies in a

However, lowering the price decreases the overall profit of the market thus, non-price competition is most important win-win strategy for all the firm. As the game, does not allow us to make product differentiation, the other method that can increase the sales are advertising, product development and E-commerce enhancement. If these expenditures are below market average level, the firm can lose the market share.

Existing Competitors. Rivalry among competitors within an industry use price discounting, new products, marketing, and other techniques to be competitive. Profitability of an industry suffers from high rivalry. The intensity with which companies compete and the basis on which they compete determine to which degree rivalry brings down an industry’s profitability (Porter, 2008). Pure competition is considered by economists as a competition with a high

The industry in which the company operates can be characterized as monopolistic competition. This is because, since there are no barriers to entry in this industry, threats of entry by potential entrants has made the industry some-what competitive. But the brand loyalty gained by the firms through massive advertising has rendered the firms within

b) In a monopolistic competition structure, although there are numerous firms, they carry different products. Due to product differentiation, each company is able to somewhat control their own pricing.

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.