Examples Of Monopolistic Competition

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c) firms sell differentiated products
d) Consumers may prefer one product over the other.
However, this market structure will no longer result in a socially optimal level of output, because the firms have more power and can influence market prices to a certain degree. An example of monopolistic competition is the market for cereals. There is a huge number of different brands (e.g. Cap’n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, and Apple Jacks). Most of them probably taste slightly different, but at the end of the day, they are all breakfast cereals.

iii) Oligopoly
Oligopoly is a market structure in which a small number of firms has the large majority of market share. An oligopoly is similar to a monopoly, except that rather than one firm, two or more firms dominate the market.

a) all firms maximize profits,
b) oligopolies can set prices,
c) there are barriers to entry and exit in the market,
d) products may be homogenous or differentiated,
e) there is only a few firms that dominate the market.
f) An oligopoly industry can appear as the result of a long competitive process.

Oligopoly industries often have a number of smaller firms in addition to the dominant firms. These small firms peripheral firms survive by selling product lines that are not profitable enough to gain the attention of the dominant firms. There is no precise upper limit to the number of firms in an oligopoly, but the number must be low enough that the actions of one firm significantly impact and

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