Autobiography of a Corporate Slave

A Monopoly is a situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service, or is the sole provider of a good or service in an industry. This potentially allows that company to become powerful enough to prevent competitors from entering the marketplace, leading to Limited Consumer Choice, Higher Prices and Limited Response to Customer Concerns. Many times when a Government determines that an unfair monopoly is in place, it can step in enforce Anti-Trust laws, which can penalise companies monetarily or even force the break up of the company. Monopolies can form for a variety of reasons, as following If a firm has exclusive ownership of a scarce resource. Governments may grant a firm monopoly status for some period of time. The reasoning behind such Monopolies is to give innovators some time to recoup, what are often large Research & Development costs. Producers may have patents over designs, or copyright over

An Oligopoly is a market structure in which few large firms dominate the market. When a market is shared between a few firms, it is said to be highly concentrated. Although only a few large firms dominate, it is possible that many smaller firms also operate in the market. Oligopolists may have considerable power to fix prices and output. Oligopolies can result from various forms of collusion between the market participants, which reduce competition and lead to higher prices for consumers. Power is concentrated only in the hands of a few firms, who can dominate the market to gain excessive super normal profits. Oligopolies may be identified using the Concentration Ratios, which measure the proportion of total market share controlled by a given number of firms. When there is high concentration ratio in an industry, economists tend to identify the industry as an Oligopoly. With few sellers, each Oligopolist is likely to be aware of the actions of the others. And the decisions take

The model of Monopolistic Competition describes a market structure where a large number of independent firms sell many similar products with slightly different characteristics. Products are differentiated from each other by the means of design, distribution, quality, colour, packaging, customer service or branding etc. and hence they are not perfect substitutes of each other. In Monopolistic Competition, a firm takes the price charged by its rivals as given and ignores the impact of it's own price on the prices of the other firms. Mainly small businesses operate under the Monopolistic Competition, including independently owned and operated high street stores, restaurants, retailers etc. Each one offers similar products but possesses an element of uniqueness, and are essentially competing for the same customers. Key Characteristics of a Monopolistic Competitive Market Large Number of Participants There are many producers / sellers and consumers in the market, and no

A perfectly competitive market is a hypothetical market where competition is at it's greatest possible level. Economists argue that perfect competition would produce the best possible outcomes for consumers and society. Key Characteristics of a Perfectly Competitive Market Perfect Knowledge About the Product There is perfect knowledge, with no information failure or time lags in the flow of information. Knowledge about all products is freely available to all market participants, which means the risk taking is minimal and the role of any single firm is limited. Given that the producers and consumers have perfect knowledge, it is assumed that they make rational decisions to maximise their self interest. Consumers look to maximise their utility, and producers look to maximise their profits. No Barriers to Entry & Exit There are no barriers to entry or exit into the market. Homogeneous Products Firms produce homogeneous or identical units of output that are not

The interconnected characteristics of a market, such as the number and relative strength of the buyers and sellers, degree of collusion among them, level and forms of competition, extent of product differentiation and ease of entry and exit in the market describes the Market Structure. The structure of the market refers to the number of firms in the market, their market shares, and other features which affect the level of competition. Market Structures are distinguished mainly by the level of competition that exists between the firms operating in the market. Hence Market Structures are classified in terms of presence or absence of competition. When competition is absent the market is said to be concentrated. In Economics, Markets are classified according to the structure of the industry serving the market. Industry structure is categorised on the basis of Market Structure Variables which is believed to determine the extent and characteristics of competition Those variables whic

The factors of production are resource inputs used to produce goods and services. It is an economic term describing the general inputs that are used in the production of goods or services in order to make economic profit. Every business utilizes various combinations of factors of production to produce final goods or services. Under the classical view of economics, there are four basic factors of production, which includes Land, Labour, Capital, and Entrepreneurship . Land is the physical space on which the production takes place, as well as natural resources or the raw materials that come from the land, like Crude Oil, Water, Air, Minerals, Ores, Coal, Timber etc.  Labour is the time human beings spend producing those goods and services, as well as the skills and abilities they use to produce the goods and services. Both the quantity and the quality of human resources and all things done either physically or intellectually to keep a business running by the human beings is i