One difference between perfect competition and monopolistic competition is that:
Video transcript- [Instructor] In this video, we're going to dig a little bit into the idea of what it means to be a monopoly, and so to help us appreciate that, let's think about the spectrum on which firms can be. So this is going to be my spectrum right over here. Now at the left end, we can imagine this idealized perfect competition, perfect competition, and we've talked about that in the other videos, but just as a review, this is where you have many firms. This is where they are selling an undifferentiated product or service, undifferentiated, undifferentiated product. The firms over here, well, they have no barriers to entry or exit, so no barriers to entry or exit. These firms that we've talked about in other videos, they need to be price takers. Why do they need to be price takers? Well, whatever the market price is, since no one cares which of these firms, which of these many firms they get the product from, none of those firms can really set their own price. If they were to go above the market price, well then no one will buy from them, and so they will just be price, price takers, and other things that we assume about perfect competition is that all of the actors in the market, both the buyers, the many buyers and the many sellers, they all know what the transactions are going on for. They know who's selling to whom for what amount. Now the other extreme, this is where we have the monopoly, monopoly. Here, instead of many firms selling or many firms producing, you have exactly one firm producing. Instead of an undifferentiated product, well, it's differentiated because it's the only firm. Instead of no barriers to entry or exit, here we have the exact opposite, so you could say insurmountable, insurmountable, mountable, I'll just abbreviate it, barriers, especially to enter, and instead of being a price taker, you are a price setter, price setter. You're the only player. You're the only actor who is selling anything, So you can decide what price to sell it at. Now, perfect competition as I talked about, it's a bit of a theoretical idea. It's hard to say any market that is absolutely perfect, but we can imagine markets that are on this spectrum, some closer to perfect competition, some closer to a monopoly. Things that I can imagine that are closer to perfect competition might be, let's say, agriculture or a certain type of agriculture. Let's say you are buying pistachios, and you might be, most people are indifferent as to where their pistachios come from, although some people might beg to differ that certain types of pistachios are better than others, but for the most part, that'd be closer to perfect competition. There will be just a price in the market for pistachios. If someone wants to grow pistachios, I'm not familiar with what it takes to grow pistachios, and I apologize to any offense to any pistachio growers out there, but maybe they can just get enough land, and there's very close to low barriers to entry, and they can start producing pistachios. As I mentioned, many would perceive it as undifferentiated, and there might be many firms in, say, the pistachio market. I actually don't know if that's the case, but let's just assume if that were the case it would be closer to a perfect competition. Now a monopoly, you can imagine things like things that take a lot of infrastructure in order to do that service. So I can imagine things like, over here, close to monopoly or at monopoly. You can imagine things like utilities providers, utilities, where it's hard for multiple people to run power lines to the various houses. You can imagine things like this. Telecom, telecom providers might be close, although in most geographies, you have more than one telecom providers, although in some parts of the world, you're getting pretty close to one because, once again, there's very, very, very high barriers to entry in either one of those. You gotta launch satellites and put cable under the ground and dig up roads and whatever until you get closer and closer to this notion of maybe there's one firm. If you're in a situation like telecom in a lot of the places where you have only a handful of firms, that's known as an oligopoly, but let's just think about the extreme, when you're in a monopoly situation, and so the next few videos, we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into what it means to be a monopoly, and what is the rational quantity for a profit-maximizing monopolistic firm to actually produce, and what would be their economic profit? Show
Learning Objective
Economists have identified four types of competition—perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Perfect competition was discussed in the last section; we’ll cover the remaining three types of competition here. Monopolistic CompetitionIn monopolistic competition, we still have many sellers (as we had under perfect competition). Now, however, they don’t sell identical products. Instead, they sell differentiated products—products that differ somewhat, or are perceived to differ, even though they serve a similar purpose. Products can be differentiated in a number of ways, including quality, style, convenience, location, and brand name. Some people prefer Coke over Pepsi, even though the two products are quite similar. But what if there was a substantial price difference between the two? In that case, buyers could be persuaded to switch from one to the other. Thus, if Coke has a big promotional sale at a supermarket chain, some Pepsi drinkers might switch (at least temporarily). How is product differentiation accomplished? Sometimes, it’s simply geographical; you probably buy gasoline at the station closest to your home regardless of the brand. At other times, perceived differences between products are promoted by advertising designed to convince consumers that one product is different from another—and better than it. Regardless of customer loyalty to a product, however, if its price goes too high, the seller will lose business to a competitor. Under monopolistic competition, therefore, companies have only limited control over price. OligopolyOligopoly means few sellers. In an oligopolistic market, each seller supplies a large portion of all the products sold in the marketplace. In addition, because the cost of starting a business in an oligopolistic industry is usually high, the number of firms entering it is low. Companies in oligopolistic industries include such large-scale enterprises as automobile companies and airlines. As large firms supplying a sizable portion of a market, these companies have some control over the prices they charge. But there’s a catch: because products are fairly similar, when one company lowers prices, others are often forced to follow suit to remain competitive. You see this practice all the time in the airline industry: When American Airlines announces a fare decrease, Continental, United Airlines, and others do likewise. When one automaker offers a special deal, its competitors usually come up with similar promotions. MonopolyIn terms of the number of sellers and degree of competition, monopolies lie at the opposite end of the spectrum from perfect competition. In perfect competition, there are many small companies, none of which can control prices; they simply accept the market price determined by supply and demand. In a monopoly, however, there’s only one seller in the market. The market could be a geographical area, such as a city or a regional area, and doesn’t necessarily have to be an entire country. There are few monopolies in the United States because the government limits them. Most fall into one of two categories: natural and legal. Natural monopolies include public utilities, such as electricity and gas suppliers. Such enterprises require huge investments, and it would be inefficient to duplicate the products that they provide. They inhibit competition, but they’re legal because they’re important to society. In exchange for the right to conduct business without competition, they’re regulated. For instance, they can’t charge whatever prices they want, but they must adhere to government-controlled prices. As a rule, they’re required to serve all customers, even if doing so isn’t cost efficient. A legal monopoly arises when a company receives a patent giving it exclusive use of an invented product or process. Patents are issued for a limited time, generally twenty years (United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2006). During this period, other companies can’t use the invented product or process without permission from the patent holder. Patents allow companies a certain period to recover the heavy costs of researching and developing products and technologies. A classic example of a company that enjoyed a patent-based legal monopoly is Polaroid, which for years held exclusive ownership of instant-film technology (Bellis, 2006). Polaroid priced the product high enough to recoup, over time, the high cost of bringing it to market. Without competition, in other words, it enjoyed a monopolistic position in regard to pricing. Key Takeaways
ExerciseIdentify the four types of competition, explain the differences among them, and provide two examples of each. (Use examples different from those given in the text.) ReferencesBellis, M., “Inventors-Edwin Land-Polaroid Photography-Instant Photography/Patents,” April 15, 2006, http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpolaroid.htm (accessed January 21, 2012). United States Patent and Trademark Office, General Information Concerning Patents, April 15, 2006, http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#laws (accessed January 21, 2012). What is a major difference between monopolistic competition and perfect competition quizlet?What is the difference between perfect competition and monopolistic competition? In perfect competition, firms produce identical goods. While monopolistic competition firms produce slightly different goods.
What is the difference between perfect competition and competition?In a perfect competition market, there are many competitors, barriers to entry are very low, products that are sold are homogenous and identical, absence of non-price competition.
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Comparative Table.. Which is the main difference between perfect competition and monopolistic competition Brainly?In perfect competition, the products are identical in shape, size, quality etc. whereas, in monopolistic competition the products are differentiated according to colour, size, brand etc. Firm, in perfect competition, determines the price while firms under monopolistic competition can partly control market price.
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