Sunday, October 3, 2010

Meaning of monopoly.

Meaning
Perfect competition and pure monopoly are two extreme forms of market structure.They are polar opposite.In perfect competition there are large number of buyers and sellers while in monopoly the seller is only one but the buyers are many.These both forms of market can be rarely found in the real world.The monopoly is a single seller or producer of his product.Since,there is only one firm there is no difference between a firm and industry in the monopoly market.
A monopoly refers to a single firm which has control over the supply which has no close substitutes.In the worlds of C.E. Ferguson -" A pure monopoly exists when there is only one producer in the market."
According to A.Koutsoyiannis -"Monopoly is a market structure in which there is a single seller, there are no close substitutes for the commodity it produces and there are barriers to sentry." For example a hotel or a bank in a remote village commands monopoly power.Likewise,public utilities like telecommunication,electricity supply,drinking water supply,postal service are the example of pure monopoly.This kind of monopoly has been called 'absolute monopoly' by Sraffa.In reality,pure monopoly is a myth which is found rarely in the real world.In the real world,only imperfect monopoly can be found where the monopoly has to face substitutes.For example,Nepal electricity authority may be called a imperfect monopoly since it has to face competition of distance substitutes like kerosene,petrol,gas,candle in different uses.

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