Microeconomics
Microeconomics
11th Edition
ISBN: 9781260507140
Author: David C. Colander
Publisher: McGraw Hill Education
Question
Book Icon
Chapter 13, Problem 1QE
To determine

Reason for why the perfectly competitive buyers and sellers are price takers.

Expert Solution & Answer
Check Mark

Explanation of Solution

Market equilibrium in a perfectly competitive market is attained with the forces of demand and supply. When the price is too high, the demand falls and when demand falls, only a price fall will lead to increase in demand for the market to fix itself. Perfectly competitive buyers and sellers are price takers because all the buyers and sellers have all the information and as there are large number of buyers and sellers dealing with homogeneous products, there will not be a single firm that can influence the price. If a firm increases the price, the buyers know that there are other sellers selling at the lower price and the firm that increased the price will have no buyers at all.

On the seller side, even though the price is low, he will not increase the price because when price increases, all the buyers will shift to the other sellers, as they know that they will be getting the same product at a low cost.

Economics Concept Introduction

Perfect competition: Perfect competition is a market structure where there are large number of buyers and sellers in the market selling the identical products.

Want to see more full solutions like this?

Subscribe now to access step-by-step solutions to millions of textbook problems written by subject matter experts!
Students have asked these similar questions
1. Case 0) Baseline case Table 1: Power Plant Capacity and Marginal Cost: Case 0 Plant # Energy Source Capacity (MW) MC (S/MWh) 1 Coal 300 45 2 Oil 100 90 3 4 Natural Gas Nuclear 500 50 600 0 (a) Calculate the capacity mix of this market by energy source. (b) Draw a supply curve of this wholesale generation market. Table 2 below shows the demand levels for selected hours of a representative day. We will consider only these four hourly markets for our analysis. Note that the 6 PM demand is the highest demand level of the day. Table 2: Hourly Demand (selected hours) Hour Demand (MWh) 4 AM 500 10 AM 700 2 PM 800 6 PM 1000 (c) Find the market clearing prices and calculate how much electricity each power plant generates in the hourly market (4AM, 10AM, 2PM, and 6PM). (d) Find the average price of electricity (by taking a simple average of hourly prices; [P(4am) + P(10AM) + P(2PM) + P(6PM)]/4).
Don't used Ai solution
How human recource allocated in an economic?
Knowledge Booster
Background pattern image
Similar questions
SEE MORE QUESTIONS
Recommended textbooks for you
Text book image
Economics (MindTap Course List)
Economics
ISBN:9781337617383
Author:Roger A. Arnold
Publisher:Cengage Learning
Text book image
Microeconomics
Economics
ISBN:9781337617406
Author:Roger A. Arnold
Publisher:Cengage Learning
Text book image
Principles of Microeconomics
Economics
ISBN:9781305156050
Author:N. Gregory Mankiw
Publisher:Cengage Learning
Text book image
Essentials of Economics (MindTap Course List)
Economics
ISBN:9781337091992
Author:N. Gregory Mankiw
Publisher:Cengage Learning
Text book image
Principles of Economics (MindTap Course List)
Economics
ISBN:9781305585126
Author:N. Gregory Mankiw
Publisher:Cengage Learning
Text book image
Principles of Macroeconomics (MindTap Course List)
Economics
ISBN:9781285165912
Author:N. Gregory Mankiw
Publisher:Cengage Learning