Why oligopolies exist.
Explanation of Solution
An oligopoly is a limited competition market. It may exist because of various reasons. The economies of scale are an important reason for an oligopoly. The economies of scale help the firms to produce at the lowest possible average cost. When the firms are producing at the minimum average cost, it will increase the profit of the firms. Only large firms will have good economies of scale and thus, they can easily capture the market. The small firms and new entrants would require investing more capital in order to get the economies of scale. Thus, the small firms cannot produce at the minimum average cost and as a result, they will be eventually driven out of the market leading to the establishment of the oligopoly.
Branding and advertisements have a high impact on the consumers. They will create a strong preference in the consumers over other products and provide a monopolistic power to the seller. Such huge advertising and branding are not possible for the small firms and as a result, they will have to eventually move out of the market because of the loss of the demand and the revenue which will create the oligopoly.
Many large sellers and producers will merge together in order to further strengthen the economies of scale, which will in turn increase their profits by reducing the cost of production. It will force small firms out of the market, creating an oligopoly.
Important examples for oligopoly products that are common in day-to-day life are automobile manufacturers; the companies that produce automobiles are very few in number. Similarly, gasoline producers are very few in number. Even though there are many companies, the manufacturers of computer chips are very few in number. The manufacturers of mobiles, as well as computer operating systems, are very few in number. These are the examples of oligopoly seen day-to-day.
An oligopoly differs from a
The market power is very small in monopolistic competition, but the market share is very high in the oligopoly market. Similarly, the products in the monopolistic competition are differentiated, whereas they are not completely in the oligopoly. The oligopoly market sometimes sells similar products, too.
By and large, there is easy entry and exit to the market in monopolistic competition. But the entry and exit into an oligopoly has strict barriers.
Concept introduction:
Oligopoly: It is an imperfect market condition. There will be a few players in the market. The market will be shared between the few sellers, thus. This is why the market condition is known to be in a state of limited competition.
Want to see more full solutions like this?
Chapter 14 Solutions
Economics (Irwin Economics)
- How to get the correct answer 0.7271 from the following problem?arrow_forwardQuestion 2 [JP.14.3.19] Consider a duopoly where the market demand is described by the equation: P = 150- Q. The marginal cost for each firm is $60. lo.] If the firms compete simultaneously with output, what is each firm's profit-maximizing output, the market quantity, and the price each firm charges? (b.) What is the economic profit eamed by each firm (from question [a]} [c.) If Firm 1 is a leader in output, what is each firm's profit-maximizing output, the market quantity, and the price each firm charges? [d.] What is the economic profit earned by each firm (from question [c])?arrow_forwardThe graph below shows a duopolistic market. The firms in this market produce and sell identical products. The graph below shows the market demand, a corresponding marginal revenue curve for the product, and an identical marginal cost curve for each firm. Assume both firms have the goal of maximising economic profit. If the two firms were to collude, what would be the total economic profit made by each firm? O O O $24 $6 $16 $8 Price ($) 10 9 8 7 $0 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 Insufficient information to determine economic profit of each firm. 1 2 3 4 MR 5 6 7 8 9 MC D 10 Quantityarrow_forward
- Ma3. You operate in a duopoly in which you and a rival must simultaneously decide what price to charge for the same homogeneous product. Assume each you and your rival can choose a “low price” or a “high price”. If you each charge a low price, you each earn zero profits. If you each charge a high price, you each earn profits of $3 million. If you charge different prices, the one charging the high price loses $5 million and the one charging the low price makes $5 million. What is the Nash equilibrium for the non-repeated version of this game? Now suppose the game is infinitely repeated. If the interest rate is 10%, can you do better than you could in the non-repeated version of this game? If your answer is “yes”, provide the players’ strategies and any other conditions that must hold.arrow_forwardDoes anyone know?arrow_forwardWhat is a feature common to both Monopolistic-Competition and Oligopoly type of markets? O productive efficiency will occur in both the short run and long run, a desirable economic property of markets. many smaller sized firms can produce the good or service at lower cost per unit than larger sized firms, thus large firms fail in the long run. the demand curve for each firm is not going to be purely elastic, because products are at least slightly different than potential rival firms' product and/or there may be some consumer brand loyalty. Firms in both types of markets eventually will be broken up by government anti-trust laws and regulations. MacBook Pro く※ G Search or type URL 6 7 8. 3 4. W Earrow_forward
- Consider an oligopolistic market with 5 identical firms that choose their profit-maximizing quantities simultaneously. Suppose each firm has constant marginal costs of $123 per unit and the market elasticity of demand is - 1.08. What is the change in the prevailing market price if one additional firm joins the market? Assume that the potential entrant is identical to the incumbent firms. O A. -7.71 O B. - 5.51 O C. -9.92 O D. - 6.89arrow_forwardPlease please explain all subparts. I will really really upvote. Thanksarrow_forward9. Suppose Warner Music and Universal Music are in a duopoly and currently limit themselves to 10 new artists per year. One artist sells 2 million songs at $1.25 per song. However, each label is capable of signing 20 artists per year. If one label increases the number of artists to 20 and the other stays the same, the price per song drops to $0.75, and each artist sells 3 million songs. If both labels increase the number of artists to 20, the price per song drops to $0.30, and each artist sells 4 million songs. Explain how revenue payoffs for each scenario are calculated. If this game is played once, how many artists will each producer sign, and what will be the price of a song? If this game is played every year, how many artists will each producer sign, and what will be the price of a song?arrow_forward
- 11 21. Imagine an N firm oligopoly for "nominally differentiated" goods. That is, each of the N firms produces a product that "looks" different from the products of its competitors, but that "really" isn't any different. However, each firm is able to fool some of the buying public. Specifically, each of the N firms (which are identical and have zero marginal cost of production) has a captive market -consumers who will buy only from that firm. The demand generated by each of these captive markets is given by the demand function Pn A- Xn , where Xn is the amount supplied to this captive market and Pn is the price of the production of firm n. There is also a group of intelligent consumers who realize that the products are really undifferentiated. These…arrow_forward3. The following graph summarizes the demand and costs for a firm that operates in a monopolistically competitive market. (LOI, LO3, LOS) $220 210 200 190 180 170 160 150 140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 MR 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 a. What is the firm's optimal output? b. What is the firm's optimal price? c. What are the firm's maximum profits? d. What adjustments should the manager be anticipating? ATC 22 23 24 25 Quantityarrow_forwardQ²arrow_forward
- Principles of Economics (12th Edition)EconomicsISBN:9780134078779Author:Karl E. Case, Ray C. Fair, Sharon E. OsterPublisher:PEARSONEngineering Economy (17th Edition)EconomicsISBN:9780134870069Author:William G. Sullivan, Elin M. Wicks, C. Patrick KoellingPublisher:PEARSON
- Principles of Economics (MindTap Course List)EconomicsISBN:9781305585126Author:N. Gregory MankiwPublisher:Cengage LearningManagerial Economics: A Problem Solving ApproachEconomicsISBN:9781337106665Author:Luke M. Froeb, Brian T. McCann, Michael R. Ward, Mike ShorPublisher:Cengage LearningManagerial Economics & Business Strategy (Mcgraw-...EconomicsISBN:9781259290619Author:Michael Baye, Jeff PrincePublisher:McGraw-Hill Education