Revision - Monopolistic Competition

Monopolistic competition is a form of imperfect competition and can be found in many real world markets ranging from clusters of sandwich bars and coffee stores in a busy town centre to pizza delivery businesses in a city or hairdressers in a local area. Small-scale children’s nurseries and care homes for older people might also fit into the market structure known as monopolistic competition.

The assumptions of monopolistic competition are as follows - as you check through them look to see the differences between this mark structure and perfect competition.

1. There are many producers and many consumers in a market - the concentration ratio is low
2.Consumers perceive that there are non-price differences among the competitors’ products i.e. there is product differentiation
3. Producers have some control over price - they are “price makers” rather than “price takers.”
4. The barriers to entry and exit into and out of the market are low

In the short run the profits made by businesses competing in this type of market structure can be at any level. One of the predictions of the model is that high levels of abnormal profit will attract new suppliers and new products into the market the effect of which might be to reduce the demand for existing products and reduce profits down towards normal profit equilibrium.

Strong brand loyalty can have the effect of making demand less sensitive to price.

The long run equilibrium may be reached with normal profits being made. The reality is that a stable equilibrium is never reached - new products come and go all of the time, some do better than others. Existing products within a market will typically go through a product life cycle which affects the volume and growth of sales.

One of the possible implications of monopolistic competition is that an inefficient outcome is reached. Prices are above marginal cost and saturation of the market may lead to businesses being unable to exploit fully the internal economies of scale - causing average cost to be higher than if the market was being supplied by less firms and products. Critics of heavy spending on marketing and advertising argue that much of this spending is wasted and is an inefficient use of scarce resources. The debate over the environmental impact of packaging is linked strongly to this aspect of monopolistic competition.

BMW - Bavarian Monopolist at Work [24 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Cyclical and Structural Economic Issues Facing the UK [23 May 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Game Theory and Business Economics [21 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Positive and Negative Multiplier Effects [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Importance of Productivity [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Measuring Inflation in the UK [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Real Interest Rates [20 May 2012]
Q&A: What do we need to know about output gaps? [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Output Gap [20 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on Elasticity of Demand [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Presentation on the Price Mechanism [16 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Rice Prices [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Supply [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Income Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Price Elasticity of Demand [13 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision Notes on Supply-side Policies [10 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Blogs on Markets and Intervention [10 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision Quiz and Game on Market Prices [10 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Model answer for revision data question [9 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Monetary Policy and Inflation Glossary [5 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Aggregate Demand Glossary [5 May 2012]
Macro Revision - Key Statistics on the UK Economy [4 May 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Climate Change Policies - Finding the Right Mix [30 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Using the Cost-Benefit Principle [30 Apr 2012]
Macro Revision: Putting Things in Context [29 Apr 2012]
Tullow Oil and African Development [25 Apr 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: The Euro Zone Crisis (Revision) [22 Apr 2012]
Ukraine Hotel ‘Bandits’? [12 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Skills Shortages Hold Back Recovery [12 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Quiz on Business Costs and Profits [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Quiz on Market Structures [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Evaluation Question on Supermarkets [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Market Failure in Private Health Care [8 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Contestable Markets [8 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopoly and Economic Welfare [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies and MES [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Price Elasticity of Supply [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Elasticity of Demand (for Rice) [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Productivity Improvements in China [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: The Collapsing Price of Carbon [3 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Subsidies [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Real Economic Data [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Real Disposable Income [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies, Technology and Prices [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Nottingham introduces workplace parking tax [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Maximum Rents in Housing [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Cartels [31 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Index Numbers [31 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Capital Investment [30 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Brazilian coffee buffer stock hit by falling prices [29 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: EU Imposes Further Price Cap on Mobile Phone Companies [29 Mar 2012]
Life in the Slow Lane - UK Growth in 2011 Lags the Euro Area [28 Mar 2012]
George Buckley at the Millfield Economics Society [28 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Evaluating 3 Years of Quantitative Easing [27 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: The Tax on Beer [16 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Inequality - The Rise of Fuel Poverty [15 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Government launches New Buy Loan Guarantee Scheme [12 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: 50 years of anti-smoking campaigns and awareness [6 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Breaking Down the Cost of Gas [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Might Oil Prices Bring another Recession? [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: King on the UK Economy [15 Feb 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Public Goods [11 Feb 2012]
Martin Wolf on Global Shocks [10 Feb 2012]
Russia’s monopoly power over gas supplies [5 Feb 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Focus on China - Inflation [26 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Focus on China - Per Capita Incomes [26 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Focus on India - Supply Side Issues [25 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Can the UK Computer Games Industry Grow [24 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Look Upwards to Find the next Downturn [15 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Factors Driving Business Investment [10 Jan 2012]
Hopes and Fears 2012 [10 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Natural Disasters and their Economic Impact [7 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Low Cost Airlines Beat the Recession [1 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Biomass Subsidies and Timber Prices [30 Dec 2011]
2012 - Carnage on the High Street [28 Dec 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: The UK Housing Market in 2011 [26 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Sub Normal Profits - BP Leaves the Solar Industry [21 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopoly and Duopoly in Bus Markets [20 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Patent Wars- A Touchy Subject for Apple [16 Dec 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Empty Housing and Economic Efficiency [15 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Tacit Collusion in the Supermarket [27 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Brand Loyalty in Mobile Phones [27 Nov 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: 50 Years since the end of the Max Wage in Football [23 Nov 2011]
Pasty Prices - Something to Chew Over [19 Nov 2011]
MON€Y PANIC$ – A Visualisation Challenge [18 Nov 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Should the EU introduce a Tobin Tax? [14 Nov 2011]
LSE lecture: Darwin economy [13 Nov 2011]
AS Macro: The State of British Business [13 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Unilever hit by rising costs [6 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Time of Use Pricing for Energy [2 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Economies of Scale and the Kinect [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Examples of Price Discrimination in Action [31 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: UK Executive Pay - All in it Together? [29 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Is the Sun Dipping on Solar Subsidies? [27 Oct 2011]
Economics at the Movies: Contagion [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: University fees and elasticity of demand [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economists attack food price speculation [24 Oct 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Ofcom gives stamp of approval for flexible pricing in mail [21 Oct 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Economic Importance of Investment [19 Oct 2011]

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