An oligopoly is a market with a small number of sellers.
• Oligopoly requires strategic thinking, unlike perfect competition, monopoly and monopolistic competition.
Characteristics of an oligopoly
There is no single theory of prices and production in the oligopoly market. If the price war breaks out, oligopolists can produce and the price as well as a highly competitive industry and would sometimes act as a pure monopoly.
An oligopoly generally has the following characteristics:
• Product Branding: Every company in the market selling a branded product.
• Barriers to entry: The dominant firms earn supernormal profits because the barrier to entry. It is possible that the number of smaller companies operating on the periphery of an oligopolistic market, # but none are large enough to have a significant effect on prices.
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duopoly
• duopoly is a form of oligopoly
• In its purest form two companies control the entire market, but in fact is used to describe any market in which two companies dominate a significant market share.
• There are many examples of duopoly or Coca-Cola and Pepsi (soft drinks), or Bloomberg and Reuters (financial information services), Sotheby and Christie (antique auctioneers /
425 A monopoly is the total control of a type of industry by one person or one company. What is a holding company? Pg.426 A holding company is a company whose primary business is owning a controlling share of stock in other companies.
Through the introduction of new business practices such as vertical and horizontal integration industries were able to facilitate rapid growth. The “Titans of Industry” John D. Rockefeller, J.P Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Vanderbilt built, respectively, their own monopolies in which they justified how their actions were actually “improving the lot of humankind” and how through Social Darwinism they were “justified in their overbearing behavior” (Shultz 301). Social Darwinism derives from the theory of “survival of the fittest” which was applied to the “contemporary economic environment” creating racialistic views on minorities from that era such as the following: women, African Americans, certain types of immigrants, and Native Americans (Shultz
During the Progressive Era, many reforms were made in the attempt to fix the negative facets of America (Fagnilli 27). Progressives were reformers who supported ideas that attempted to make a change in society’s problems, such as corruption of government, women’s suffrage, and accessibility of education (The Progressive Era). These reformers lived mostly in urban areas, and therefore witnessed these issues first-hand, thus they believed that country could be mended by the government if it took responsibility for ensuring safe work conditions and environment, and education (The Progressive Era). Crucial to change in America, issues that were targeted by reforms had both positive and negative impacts, which indisputably changed America.
The period from 1865 to 1900 was characterized by an astronomical boom in industry and manufacturing, economic growth for the rich, financial turmoil for the poor, and political corruption. As a result, the era has been named “The Gilded Age.” Just as something gilded is gold on the outside but worthless metal on the inside, these years seemed prosperous from an outside perspective, when in reality, the wealth gap was increasing at an alarming rate and big business had power over government officials. As a result of this, a lot of federal legislation was influenced by monopolies and often catered to the desires of businessmen. Since regulation of certain business practices would cause these trusts to lose money, Congress shied away from regulating
Even further, these robber barons would often ruthlessly eradicate competition by buying out other companies to establish monopolies through the horizontal and vertical integration of production and product.
During the Progressive Era there were multiple of changes occurring that people became overwhelmed. New resources in the oil market, industrialization, fights for equality. There were many factory jobs, however, no one to stand up for the workers. So of course people will turn to their government for help, the power house of the country. However, even the government was picky in what they helped with.
The Gilded Age was a time of good and bad economic growth. In America during post civil war times, years 1870 to 1900, the nation was prospering on the surface, but was corrupt underneath; large businesses took control of the economy, changed society, and influenced politics nefariously. By the end of the nineteenth century, monopolies and trusts exercised a significant degree of control over key aspects of the American economy. Carnegie used vertical integration to take over the steel industry. He then set up a mega trust with Rockefeller, who was in the gas and oil industry, JP Morgan, who was a banker, and Vanderbilt, who was high up in the railroad industry.
Roosevelt was re-elected president of the United States (first time elected) in 1904 partly to break up trusts and monopolies. The public was outraged for decades by the ways trusts and monopolies were cheating in business. Roosevelt felt that the US government was responsible for the falls of many legitimate businesses, because they failed to prosecute trusts and monopolies (Roosevelt 222). As president, Roosevelt pledged to protect small businesses and sue monopolies and trusts by implementing the Sherman Antitrust Act to restore honest commerce and labor conditions. Railroad discrimination continued to exist when Roosevelt came into the presidency after President Mckinley’s assassination.
The temporary character of competitiveness, which can be lowered anytime. 4. The massive spending on technological advances. 5. The brand image misconception in which low prices are usually associated with low quality product.
This also causes involving price-fixing and market-division arrangements. It usually involves the private parties and the government which would also be the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission. This is a firm has done something anti-competitive in order to stay ahead in the game or stay ahead in the monopoly. Monopolies without any anti-competitive behavior aren’t usually illegal. An example of these cases was in 1911 and the Supreme Court ruled abuse on John Rocketfeller's Standard Oil Co. because they had abused its monopoly power to keep other companies from going against it and it also divided into thirty-four separate companies.
Market Structure - Oligopoly Oligopoly is a market structure whereby a few number of firms owns a lion’s share in the market. This market structure is similar to monopoly, except that instead of one firm, two or more firms have control in the market. In an oligopoly, there are no upper limits to the number of firms, but the number must be nadir enough that the operations of one firm remarkably influence and affects the others (Investopedia, 2003). The Walt Disney Company is categorized under an oligopoly market structure.
The freedoms that are hindered by these entities are the freedom to enter or not enter into a particular transaction by denying them any alternative and the freedom to not be affected by transactions in which you do not partake (Friedman, 1975). A monopoly deprives the consumer of the freedom of exchange; the consumer is forced to transact with a sole seller. Monopolies themselves come in different forms and deciding which monopoly will do less harm to the people, the monopolies need to be studied on a case-by-case basis. Most monopolies can be dealt with anti-trust laws to prevent them from coming to existence. Furthermore some monopolies need the government to stop supporting them in order to terminate its existence.
The type of market my paper is concentrating on is known as a monopolistic competition market. The first characteristic that differentiate a monopolistic competition market from the other 3 markets is that in a monopolistic competition, there are many sellers which would lead to competition between the firms to sell their products. The second characteristic is that monopolistic firms are relatively small, which can result in either new firms to enter the industry or firms that are existing to exit the market. The third characteristic is that the firms in the monopolistic market sell products that are similar but are slightly different compared to other firms in the same market. The last characteristic is that the firms in a monopolistic market
The other factors that influence the firm behaviour under a market structure are the efficiency. Firm will be more efficient in a competitive market while firms will be least efficient in a monopoly
They are differentiated by their products such as soft drinks and soap powder. There also exist little firms who produce similar products such as petrol. However, in oligopoly, there are barriers to enter the market. Similar to monopoly, the barriers are no different, and it differs from one industry to the other. This is why the firms in oligopoly are interdependent with each other, because the firms all have large market shares and each of their actions would affect the rest, so any decision-making will be based on their competitors’ reactions.